*deep breath*
For some reason, this lulled me into a false sense of security. He was fine. He was going to live to a ripe old age now, if he could survive all that.
I was preparing a bubble bath for my daughter, when my husband came and stood in the bathroom doorway. He said my name quietly, but I couldn't hear him well over the running water at first. He repeated it, this time I heard and looked over at him. He looked blank faced. A rarity for my very expressive husband.
"What is it?," I asked. I paused. "Carrie Fisher?" (she was near death at this time, but hadn't passed yet).
"I don't want to tell you," he said, in a voice that let me know this one was going to hurt. A lot. I had no idea who, but I knew it was bad. He turned the iPad he was holding around and showed me the screen.
That's when I saw it. A cold, unfeeling, black and white headline: "Former Wham! Frontman George Michael, Dead at 53."
I put my hand to my chest. I was shocked. My first reaction was anger: "Damn you, 2016!" We lost so many icons in 2016, it got to be almost laughable how often another name popped up. Losing David Bowie and Prince in the same year would be big enough, but the list was insanely long. I walked around just saying, "damn it!" for a few minutes. I wasn't crying. I was mad.
My mother overheard me muttering my curses toward 2016 as I passed her bedroom. "What happened?" she called through the closed door. "George Michael died," was all I could muster. "Oh no!" she called back.
She later said she wasn't going to watch the news, check her phone, or anything else for the rest of the year, because she couldn't hear about any more loss. A few days later, Debbie Reynolds, one of her all-time favorite people, would also be gone.
It was a cruel year, indeed.