Christmas 2017 - one year on

A tribute to George Michael in Paradiso (Amsterdam), January 2017

It's a cliche for a reason, because I really do remember the moment I heard about George Michael's death like it was yesterday.  It was in the early hours of Boxing Day 2016 that I got the dreadful news. We were staying at a hotel, my wife had taken our little  dog for a quick midnight walkies and upon return looked at her phone. George was all over the news of course. She woke me and said "Honey, George is dead" and promptly burst into tears. My own tears would only really start flowing a few days later, when the news finally sank in. That first night I just sighed deeply, sent a sad Whatsapp message to my friend and fellow George Michael fan Anne of GMNL and went on Facebook to share the news. My first posts didn't make any sense whatsoever as I was still in shock.

A visit to Highgate - paying my respects

It's easy to separate us mourning fans from the gawkers and other onlookers at the sea of flowers at George Michael's house in Highgate, London. We all have the same slightly dazed look on our face, trying to make sense of the incomprehensible. Some, like me, have tears in their eyes.

When I get there Wednesday morning, a week and a half after the devastating news of George's death, there are quite a few people around. They are all walking around quietly, looking at everything that's been left as a sign of love for George. Almost everybody has their camera of phone out to make a little video or take some pictures. But not in the tabloid way, in a respectful way. I talked a little while with fellow fan Yota, she is a Greek fan, living in South London. She felt it was 'important to be here'.

The dear friend I never met - tribute to George Michael

George Michael is gone, taken from all of us far too soon. He died on December 25, 2016, Christmas Day. Even now I can scarcely take it in, it seems unbelievable.
I never met George. For me he was the dear friend I somehow never got to meet. I could turn to him for a joyous celebration when I was happy and ask to be comforted by him when life was unbearably sad. I felt I knew him through his music, as much as he allowed us to know him that is. My dear friend is gone forever but he left his music behind. It will have to be enough.

Forever in our hearts

We fans are all grieving, each in our own way. In these days of social media it's easy to see how many lives George touched, how many people loved his music, loved him. The group of people who mourn him, from celebrities to  just regular people like me, is surprisingly diverse. So many in the music world professed their admiration, respect or even love for him.

For so long George Michael sought to be taken serious as a solo artist, to be thought of as a talented musician rather than that pretty boy from Wham! Looking at twitter, Facebook and the media the day after his passing it's obvious he had earned the respect he so craved - in spades. What makes me cry for George is the thought that he will never see this outpouring of love. Because I don't think George ever knew how much his peers, his fellow musicians respected him and even looked up to him.

Today, time and again my thoughts turn to George Michael's father. A little over 4 years ago I watched George Michael walk on stage at the Viennese Stadthalle to resume his Symphonica Tour after a long hiatus due to illness- and my heart rejoiced.  As luck would have it, his father was sitting 2 rows behind me. Of course I didn't want to bother him too much but during the break I walked up to him and quickly told him how grateful and happy we all were that George was doing better. I'll never forget the look on mister Panayiotou's face when he told me what it had been like for him to get his son back from the dead. My heart aches for him at the thought that after all this he still will have to bury his only son - it's too cruel for words.

Some time later I discussed with Shirl (@mollie5555), a fellow George Michael fan from Dublin, how nice it was to see Mister Panayiotou in the audience. She had also had a quick chat with George's father and one of the things she told him was that she was so grateful to George for bringing so many people together. Today our talk popped into my head and she's absolutely right. It's one of the surprising ways George Michael has enriched my life.

Without George I'd never have met so many lovely people. Some fans were kind enough to sell me their superfluous concert tickets at face value prices, so I had great seats for sold-out shows. Some fans I met at the venues where the 25Live and Symphonica tours played, there was a small group of people I saw at nearly every show I ever went to. The George Michael fan world was at times a very small world. I remember collecting our tickets at the box office at Madison Square Garden in New York City and promptly bumping in to two of George's biggest fans from England! Some fans I met at fan get-togethers where we laughed, swapped stories and played a lot of GM music.
And some fans whom I  consider to be among my best friends I only met online. Like the lovely but formidable Anne, the woman behind GeorgeMichaelNL. And the incomparable Meme (@memelamour, who I finally met last year, yay!) What bound all of us together was our shared love for George Michael and his music. And for that I am grateful to George.


Soundtrack

The phrase 'soundtrack of my life' is overused at this point, but for George it definitely does apply. George's music was with me for years and years. As a teenager having a bit of a crush on the blond guy in Wham, and secretly dancing to 'Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go' as it was not cool at all at our school to be a Wham! fan. As a twenty-something sobbing my heart out to endless repeats of  'One More Try', and 'A Different Corner' when I got my heart broken for the first time.
Eleven years ago, on the morning of our wedding listening with my wife to 'Amazing', his joyous love song for then-partner Kenny Goss. It was a fitting way to start our day of love and celebration together.
When I went through a long period of grief, mourning the mother that I never knew, I sought refuge in George's music. His voice was the only one that could comfort the inconsolable child within me.
Only last week I changed my alarm ringtone to 'Spinning The Wheel' and was gobsmacked anew by the sheer brilliance of the song. It's such a great track and live it was even better - mesmerising even. And while it hurts too much to listen to his music now, I'm sure in time it will help me get over the pain of losing him.


Pain

Like all of us, George had his flaws. It was no secret that hugely talented as he was, he was also burdened with what the Guardian lovingly called "a somewhat inept approach to being alive". Most of the fans felt quite protective about George and I was no exception. At times, as Simon Hattenstone of the Guardian so aptly put it, I felt "more parental by the second". I pray infrequently but whenever I did I always included a quick prayer for George, asking that he please be healthy, happy and safe.

Sadly quite often George tried to shield his fragile soul from the pain and grief of life in ways that were clearly not good for him. His family must have been so worried for him and his self-medication probably caused them a great deal of pain and anguish. I'm convinced though that in the end the person he hurt the most was himself. By all accounts George was at heart a very kind and loving man, truly one of the good guys. The fact that through it all his true friends stood by him and never, ever blabbed to the tabloids says it all. He was clearly a man worth knowing and loving.

Still, being a a George Michael fan wasn't always easy. It meant being there with him through all the highs and the lows, the good times and the bad times. And some of the bad times were very bad indeed.
George and cars, it was forever a dangerous combo.  I can still feel the utter shock of walking into the breakfast room of our English hotel and seeing the blaring headlines that George had been in a near-fatal crash. It had left his big, sturdy car a write-off and the scary photos of what was left of his Jeep stayed with me for days. Amazingly, he walked away from the wreckage without any serious injuries.  A few years later he was not so lucky with that horrid incident where he somehow ended up lying in the middle of a motorway. And of course there was the embarrassing mishap that resulted in millions upon millions of free publicity for Snappy Snaps - and a short stint in jail for George.

But all of that paled in comparison with the weeks of desperate worry at the end of 2011, when George was fighting for his life in Vienna after he fell ill during his successful Symphonica Tour. Like most fans I wept tears of relief when he finally flew back to London after a month of hospitalisation in Vienna. And I cried right along with him as I watched his tearful impromptu press conference the day he got back home, his face gaunt, a frail man looking like a shadow of the star who'd played to sold-out arenas only a few weeks before. Oh George.


Joy and laughter

Of course there were many high points as well, many moments that made me so proud and happy to be a George Michael fan.

That beautiful smile

He was an absolute joy to listen to in interviews. Part of it was his honesty (he must have been a dream come true for any good good interviewer), part of it was his innate charm and sense of humour. George could be very funny, his hour long special with Michael Parkinson is a great example. And he was never afraid to send himself up,  appearing in hilarious sketches with Catherine Tate (I still listen to their version of Fairytale Of New York), Little Britain and Ricky Gervais to name a few.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, could rock a suit like George! The black and silver Armani suits he wore for most of the 25Live shows were an inspired choice. As was the wonderfully naughty cop uniform he used for Outside, both the video and the version for 25Live.

George was such a handsome man. Over the years we saw quite a few image changes - one even more appealing (that's a polite word for hot) than the other. With the notable exception of his short Mafia Don phase in 2009 of course.

That beautiful, infectious grin. Whenever George was having fun, onstage or in some other situation, his smile would light up any room or auditorium. No matter how sad you were feeling, if you saw George laugh, you automatically smiled too, you couldn't help it.


Live in London (and a lot of other places)

I've been very lucky to see George Michael in concert a lot during the 25Live and Symphonica tours. It cost quite a bit of money and time but it was totally worth it.  Along the way I accumulated a wealth of priceless memories. Far too many to mention here, but here are a couple that are on my mind today.

Lost in music, adored by his fans.
Earls Court, October 2012

Rotterdam, November 4, 2006
Back in 2006 it was a big gamble for George to tour again. The music scene was changing, and everybody needed to tour to make money and to support their careers. George didn't want the kind of lavish show (constant costume changes, lots of dancers etc.) designed to distract you from the fact the performer on stage couldn't actually sing that well. He wanted his voice to take centre stage. But would his voice hold up, and would the crowds still love him? Yes and yes - and it was touching to see how happy that made him, night after night.
Dutch crowds always were good to George, he loved us and we loved him right back. At the end of the last of 3 sold-out nights he told us he'd had a fantastic time and thanked us for 'singing all night  with him '. So humble and touching.

My Mother Had A Brother, August 1, 2007
One of the most beautiful songs George ever wrote. It was never a single so the casual George Michael fan might not even be aware of its existence. But it's such a wonderful, emotional song and I feel blessed that I heard George sing it live a few times. George didn't put it on the setlist all that often, because vocally he'd have to be on the top of his game to do it justice live.

Where I Hope You Are - Herning August 29, 2011
What can I say. This was the song that told the world how much he'd loved Kenny Goss and how much he was hurting from their break-up. And on that particular night he showed us as well, welling up a few times during the song, his voice breaking a bit. It was a special moment on an already very special night.

Verona, September 13, 2011
It was a very warm September afternoon in Verona, 5 years ago. I was sat on a bench on the square in front of the amazingly beautiful Arena di Verona (an historical, open-air venue), all excited for the concert to come that evening. And then I heard George's voice, he was soundchecking by singing 'Understand'! I remember it so vividly,  the feel of the warmth of the sun, the view of that wonderful historical Arena and George's voice drifting over to where I was sitting. It was a perfect moment.



Thank you, George

I feel  so privileged to have heard George's beautiful voice so many times. Live in concert that amazing voice of his was even better than on CD. So warm and full of emotion, always sounding as if he was singing just for you. The thought of his live voice being silent forever in this world makes me sad beyond tears.

I'm not yet able to say goodbye to George. Today 'goodbye' hurts too much. Today is a day for tears. Tears for George because I hoped for so much more for him; he deserved a longer and happier life. Today is also a day for remembrance. And for being grateful and saying a heartfelt 'thank you' to the man who had such a big impact on my life.

"I'm so sorry George that you had to leave here so early. I hope you are with Anselmo and your mum and most of all I hope you are at peace. Be well dear George and thank you for all that you've given me. I've loved you for a good part of your life and I will love you for the rest of mine."

Time to grieve

You can't outrun grief. I should know, because I tried. God, how I tried.

When your life seems to much to bear, everywhere else seems a better place to be. Out of your body, out of your mind. I've never taken illegal drugs of any kind; I'm prone to depression so it would be stupid and dangerous to mess around with drugs. But I understand the urge to do drugs very well. When you're suffering, any escape out of the pain, even a chemical one, sounds like a great idea.

But it's not. If you want to be connected to your future, you can't cut the line to your past, no matter how painful the past may be. Besides, running away from pain doesn't make it go away. It's still there, biding its time, waiting for you.
It also has this annoying tendency to slip through your defences and knock you out when you least expect it. Found that out the hard way! Trouble with venue-security at the Symphonica concerts touched at some old stuff and I cried for days on end, heartbroken.

But overall I had so much fun following the Symphonica Tour around! I loved seeing George Michael and all the Symphonica musicians up close so many times. It was great too meet a lot of new GM-friends in the venues and on-line. And I discovered I liked Twitter after all, as it's such an easy way of connecting with other people. Just perfect for someone as shy as I am.

But now it's time to stop running away. It's finally time to grieve.

Thinking about Where I Hope You Are

Some more thoughts about the new George Michael song Where I Hope You Are. It's not the full review I want to write about this wonderful song, I'll hold off on that until the CD single comes out. These are just some thoughts about how this song affected me.
George's music is deeply personal, but can still lead all of us on our own emotional journey, that's the beauty of the way he writes. This is where Where I Hope You Are led me.

I'm a survivor. I survived being born amidst the horrors of a brutal  civil war in Nigeria. I survived the death of my mother of starvation when she was still nursing me. I almost died from hunger too after her death when there was no food left to give to me, but I survived even then.
I'm a survivor; it's what I do. Now if I only could forgive myself for surviving I'd be all set.

These last few weeks have been so much fun! Going to four (!) George Michael concerts in as many weeks in three different countries was incredible. Meeting up with old friends from the George Michael fan community and making new GM friends at the concerts and online (twitter, yay!) was great.
And in spite of all that, or maybe because of all that, today I'm sad beyond words. I miss my mum. I think she misses me too. And that thought makes me feel so sad. And so guilty.

It's not my fault she's dead, enemies of the Igbo tribe murdered her by starving her and hundreds of thousands of Igbo people to death. I'm sure that nursing me depleted what little resources she had left after fleeing, while heavily pregnant with me, across the country back to Igbo territory together with her husband and 3 small children. Still not my fault, I didn't kill her.

I know all that but I still want to beg her forgiveness and say: "I'm so sorry that I'm still alive and you're dead. I'm sorry that today I'm enjoying the sun on my face in the Netherlands while all that remains of you are dusty bones in the earth of a village in Nigeria. I'm just so sorry, mum".

Looking back on it, I guess that's why Where I Hope You Are hit me so hard when I first heard it in Herning. The way George Michael kept singing "I'm so sorry" broke my heart. With every "sorry" his head dropped a little lower and his voice got a little more emotional. He truly was sorry, even the most cynical person on earth could see that. That particular performance of Where I Hope You Are almost felt like a public penance to me, and it affected me deeply. I cried my eyes out.

And guilt? Well, I'll bet George Michael feels quite guilty too about the way things turned out. It's very hard to realise that the person you love the most is the person you've hurt the most. I've been there, I guess everyone in a long-time relationship has been there at one time or another.

9/11 Ten years on

What is there left to say about September 11, 2001? Maybe all should be silence. RIP: all the people who died that day and in the wars that followed.

Where was I when I heard the news? Well, I was at work, because 9 AM in New York equals 3 PM in the Netherlands. I vividly remember a colleague coming into my office to tell me the news and me laughing in his face in disbelief. Planes flying into buildings? It just couldn't be true, could it? But it was. And the world changed.

Strangely enough my first thoughts of compassion were for those people on the planes, knowing they were being made into a living, dying bomb. No way out. Some of the people in the Towers had a small chance of getting out, they had none.
Then I thought of all the ordinary people working in or near the Twin Towers, going to work today that fateful day with no idea of how terrible a day it was going to be. Acts of terrorism and war destroy the lives of the innocents first and foremost.

CNN.com was down, internet news sites all over the world were down, everyone scrambling to get news updates. In a moment of  inspiration I turned to eBay.com, their messageboards were still functioning. It was unreal, reading about death, destruction and terrorism on the site I had used so much over the years for the innocent pleasure of adding stuff to my various collections. In an seemingly endless thread, post after post told of grief, terror and pain.

Then, and I will never forget this, I saw these words in caps: SECOND TOWER DOWN. More powerful than any image these 3 words for me sum up the horror of  September 11, 2001.

Symphonica, video Where I Hope You Are (August 29)

This song is just so beautiful, and so sad. I can't even begin to imagine what it must cost him to sing it night after night.
I'll write some more about this song at a later date, for now I just want to share it with you. I haven't put it on my Youtube channel, I don't want just anyone to see it and maybe make fun of George. This is just for us fans.

Now to explain about the wobbly bit in the middle, sorry for that.
 As you can tell from the first half of the video, my new camera has a powerful (12 x) zoom. Because I was sitting so close to George (3rd row) it's as if  you can see even behind his eyes. As I saw him struggling to keep his emotions in check I started to feel very bad for being 'in his face' with my stupid little camera.
Wanting to give him the privacy he deserves I started to zoom out. And then changed my mind again. I loved the song, loved the performance, heartbreaking as it was. So I zoomed in again, but not as close as before, and because filming is not exactly my forte I promptly botched up the zooming action.

You can tell from the first few seconds of Praying For Time when he is turning away from the audience for a bit, that he was still somewhat emotional. We all were! Fortunately, during Praying For Time it got better.

Van Herning, August 29

Crime shows: no mourning allowed

I watch a lot of crime shows and police procedurals. I don't like the CSI Franchise, but most other shows are fun. Law & Order SVU, Law & Order Criminal Intent, The Closer, A Toch of Frost, New Tricks, I love them all.

As much as I enjoy crime shows, one thing seriously bugs me. One of my pet peeves is that you almost never see any sign of actual grief on those shows. Sure, family and friends of the murder victim shed a tear or two, but before you know it, it's business as usual. You never see any of the shock and devastation that a death, let alone a murder, causes in the real world.
Now I realise that the writers only have 40 to 60 minutes at their disposal to tell their story and have to deal with grief in a perfunctory manner, but come on. When your friend gets murdered you don't just go on with life. Everything stops and for a while you're either in shock or besides yourself with grief. You might find a 'new normal' but not in the week or so it always takes TV detectives to catch the killer.

What's even more annoying is the exception to the no-grief rule. As soon as someone shows some real emotion it's a clear sign he or she is the murderer. Only murderers are allowed to weep and wail to their heart's content.

Last night I watched an episode of the delightfully quirky Life, starring Damian Lewis. A man was utterly destroyed by the death of his wife. At first I was pleasantly surprised, here at last was some realism. But sure enough it turned out that the husband had devised an ingenious plan to kill his wife. For political gain, no less.

Song of grief: Afscheid nemen bestaat niet

Our most successful singer here in the Netherlands is called Marco Borsato. He's not a singer-songwriter as such, but his close collaboration with his personal songwriter is very successful. The pair have scored numerous hits.


A Borsato song is instantly recognisable, most of them are rather bombastic pop songs full of anguish, love or some other strong emotion. Borsato isn't the greatest singer around but boy can he emote!


If you're in love, and flying high, his songs will lift you even higher. If you're going through a particularly brutal breakup, he's there for you. Not surprisingly he can also be counted on to help you through a period of grief.


His most famous song of grief is called: Afscheid nemen bestaat niet, which translates to something like "no goodbye is forever".
The plot of the official video goes like this. We see a little girl in a playground, while her mother is at work nearby. The little girl is all alone, obviously feeling sad. She whispers the name of her father and Borsato (her father) appears and sings the song to her. He walks with her through the playground and the girl looks happy again. At the end of the song, the girl's mother appears again to to pick her up. We take one last look at the playground and see the image of Borsato fading. He was never there, existing only in the imagination of the little girl. It's actually rather sweet, check it out here.


The lyrics are here, in Dutch of course. But, as we all know Google (translation) is your friend. Well, more of an acquaintance in this case, because Google gets it wrong a few times. So here are the main points: no goodbye is forever, the dead are still connected to the loved ones they left behind and if needed they will come and help them through their grief.
The song is written from the viewpoint of a person who's about to die. The song is a promise to someone that he'll always be there if he or she needs him. Fluister mijn naam en ik kom er aan. "Just whisper my name, and I will come to you".


The sentiment of this song is a bit, well, trite, and the fact that absolutely everyone and their brother has heard this song played at a funeral doesn't exactly help. Still, there's one line in this song that's on my mind a lot these days. Zoek me in alles, dan kom je me tegen. "Look for me everywhere and you'll find me again".


It's a concept I'm struggling with. On the one hand I couldn't agree more. I do believe that love can build a bridge between the living and the dead. That a bond between two people can be so strong that death can only alter it, but not break it forever. And I want to believe that if you know what to look for you can encounter your loved ones in other people.


On the other hand it's a fine line between believing all that and silliness. I'm reminded of an episode of Friends where Phoebe was convinced that a stray cat harboured the soul of her dead mother. Sure, it was played for laughs, but what's the difference between flaky Phoebe's delusiosn and regular transference (me seeing my mum in other people).

I've seen glimpses of my mother in people I loved dearly. A good friend, a former boss, a life coach, my therapist, they all mirrored aspects of my mothers love. It's comforting but it also leaves you feeling very vulnerable in that kind of relationship. So it's a constant struggle.


But today it all became clear to me. I heard a voice telling me: "What's left of your mum isn't in other people, it's in you"!
So maybe, it's not so much a question of looking everywhere as looking deep inside yourself. My mum isn't gone forever, she's become a part of me.

Missing my mum

Today is not a good day and I feel so very sad. Grief can do that to you. One day you''ll feel reasonably well and you tell yourself: I'll get through this, and I'll come out of this a stronger person".

The next day you're in a dark, locked room. It's so cold in there and there are unspeakable terrors all around you and you just know that you will never, ever get out of there.

My mother is dead. She died a long time ago, when I was just a baby. Sometimes I miss her so much, my body literally aches.
A voice inside me cries out in grief: "Where are you, mum? Why did you die and leave me all alone in this cold word? Living here without you is just too hard for me.

There are no answers, only silence. And my inner child is inconsolable. She misses her mum. I miss my mum. I don't know what to do to help this crying little girl inside of me, we are both so sad. And lonely, forever lonely.

Thank God tomorrow is another day.

Norway

What horrible news from Norway. Horror beyond words. So many young people dead, so many people traumatised. It's scary to realise how little effort is apparently needed to cause this much death and suffering.

So much grief.
Imagine how many lives are touched by what happened yesterday. All the family and friends of the people who died or were wounded, the survivors (quite a few of them will develop post traumatic stress disorder), the lives of all these people will never be the same after yesterday's attacks. Just horrible.

What could possibly drive someone to do such a terrible thing?