he's still so alive in all of us
The moment I heard the news, my heart sank to the floor. I was still in disbelief so when it was confirmed, I thought that deep sorrow I felt would dissipate. It hasn’t and I keep thinking “why?”.
Although parts of high school was a blur, I remember Linkin Park was a huge part of it. In my freshman year, Hybrid Theory came out. I didn’t own a lot of CDs but this, I HAD to own. After being exposed to “One Step Closer”, “Crawling”, and “Papercut”, I was glad they didn’t discriminate against any one genre but instead married them to make their own music. I went to watch them in concert during their Projekt Revolution tour at the Nassau Coliseum with my best friend. As it was my first concert ever, it’s a night in my life I will always look back on.
When I think back now, I don’t remember why I felt the way I did. Maybe it was something small my teachers or classmates had said to me, maybe it were those stares on the subway on my way to school, maybe it was the death of a loved one, maybe it was when health issues hit home, or maybe it was just the hormones that made me feel ugly, useless and dumb. My life was definitely not bad compared to the rest of world but I still occasionally managed to daydream of ways I could exit. Ways I could just stop thinking too much. Although I don’t think I would have gone to the extent of leaving this world on my own, Linkin Park certainly made me less lonely throughout high school and made every day easier to live through.
Besides the badass instrumentals, one of the things I love the most is Mike and Chester’s vocal harmony. It simply makes me smile when I hear their voices blend together. I will continue to listen and hopefully, if I have children, their music will help them as much as it helped me.
I wonder if he even saw this coming? How do you get closure when he’s still so alive in all of us?
I guess… my heart continues to be heavy because we won’t ever get to experience new music with Chester. We won’t ever feel that same excitement when a new album drops. We won’t ever get to remind him that he will forever be a huge part of many of our lives. That he had a purpose to stay here. We were willing to be there for him as much as he was there for us.
