I am actually not sure where to begin . . .
Perhaps she is no more than a famous death to you, but I am starting to realize that my thoughts and feelings - and actions - connect me via a web, to a myriad of other women around the world.
I read the news pieces on my phone. Search her on YouTube and devouring her feed on Twitter and Facebook, even if I have read the posts before. I thought that Faith and Courage was my favourite album, but when I skip through I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got . . . Well god damn. I wish we could stop replaying Nothing Compares 2 U for long enough to really appreciate I Am Stretched on Your Grave or Last Day of Our Acquaintance. And the clip at the end of the Nothing Compares documentary, as her voice soars Thank You for Hearing Me from Universal Mother. Divine.
And she is, now. I disagree with Morrisey’s commentary. He wrote that we did not have the guts to praise her when she was alive and was looking for us. I think that in general, we do not and cannot appreciate the whole of someone until they become as such, in death. If you have read my words before you will know that one of my favourite reminders is that death is a part of life. And so in dying, Sinead has tied a bow.
I was sitting on a ferry when I heard the news via a friend. I startled my sleeping teenager as I needed to say it out loud. As the rememberings began - funny that, Rememberings being the title of her book - I searched for a similar feeling in the loss of someone famous who deeply meant something to me. Stuart Adamson of Big Country soon came to mind. His voice took me away from a chaotic home life, turned far too loud on my Walkman as I mowed the expansive lawn around my parents’ home.
I discovered Sinead O’Connor like many of us, via her Prince cover. For me, it was via the big screen at the university pub. There she was larger than life, head shaved, right before my eyes as I sat under an army beret that covered my hair loss. Her tears felt like they were for me, soothing the discomfort I carried as I moved about every day, wondering what people thought when then looked at me. But she was also the rage me and my female friends felt as we jumped on speakers at bars that did not reflect our community, dancing to top 40 in ripped jeans, men’s undershirts, and army surplus boots. See me. The rage that kept me safe as I stomped home from a pub or club at 1 in the morning, alone in the downtown of the city where I grew up. Get big, I would tell myself, get real big and you will be safe.
When I imagine Sinead now, wherever she is, she is gleefully floating, somersaulting through the air, the long fabric of her dress and hijab casting out wildly as she loops her body, a soft giggle constantly emitting from her lips. Her death completes her, as it will for all of us.
I read her book earlier this year, and am now listening to the audio version because it never felt like enough to simply read her words; I need to hear her voice. I am struck by media pieces about her fourth and final marriage, the tears she shed in Vegas for a marriage that lasted less than two weeks. Morrisey chastises us for not praising her. I think like many of us, she was looking for the attachment that was missing in childhood, the love that a damaged parent could not provide. And she made us uncomfortable because she didn’t hide it. She didn’t hide new trauma that layered the old, when her hysterectomy lead to a mental health crisis. Just tonight I watched her tell Tommy Tiernan that had she not reached out so publicly, she would not be here . . . And she isn’t here, is she. She will not shed another tear nor sing another song in real time.
I am not sure I subscribe to my first assumption any longer, that she ended her life in her new London flat. I have learned a lot from friends who carry parental loss. It’s my sense that witnessing heavy grief is confusing when it can be held so close to an equally deep joy. It scares us in the watching. And like much else, Sinead did not hide the fullness of her grief in losing her son, much like the grief she carried for her abusive mother whom she also deeply missed and loved. She went to that place where it is all true.
I like that place.
However it was that she died, like Bowie and Cohen, we will soon have new music for our grief. Apparently she titled her final album, No Veteran Dies Alone. And also apparently, she instructed her children to call her accountant before 911, in the event of her death. She was a veteran alright. Life put her through her paces and she seemed to understand its contradictions more than most. I am grateful for the further complexities I am discovering in my grief for this woman who offered me so many mirrors.
Thank you for hearing me.
Image credit: Mike Hebdon (2014)
Beautiful reflection and memories Jana. She lived her life artfully, genuinely, humanly and truthfully. As you said, her music will now be my playlist for mourning and grief-filled times, just as it helped me cope with teenage angst and disappointment.
May she be at peace at last.
Much love to you,
Nathalie