Sinead first sliced into my consciousness when I was ten years old and my Girl Scout friend had I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got on cassette. I'd never heard anyone speak their truth like that and at ten years old, you're not going to relate easily to lines like "I liked it all, like the times we did it so hard there was blood on the wall". She came to me again after I'd graduated high school and my worst high school bully killed himself. I turned to I Do Not Want because I did indeed feel so different, and that person caused as much sorrow dead as he did when he was alive. I was (and am) a devoted follower of Tori, Alanis, PJ, Shirley, but no one, not even Courtney, said it as plainly and as proudly as Sinead. I curled up with that album like a friend, in the dark, with my lava lamp and my candles, not knowing how deep and how far grief could go with its kaleidoscopic range, but Sinead knew. Sinead knew what it was like to grieve someone you hated. She knew what it was like to live out your own personal apocalypse, like when my dad died. Sinead knew their answer already. She granted you the courage to change the things you could and showed you how to have wisdom to know the difference. Her songs could howl out your jumbled, jagged rages or they could create delicate soundscapes that didn't sound out of place around the Christmas tree, like "Heroine". She was always there to offer unconditional sonic support. Don't be some man's woman, she advised. Be your own woman. Be your own spirit. I listened. I eventually learned. I always have, long before last Wednesday. I even subscribed to her blog on her website and read and laughed with her over the perils of menstrual issues, over the spa sessions she loved with her daughter. I bought tickets three times to tours she never followed through with but I bought them anyways, because she would always be on my bucket list and there was always the possibility that she'd finally show herself, even for a moment. I wanted that chance. I so wanted that chance. And now she can't anymore.

I wish there would be some kind of public memorial for her, but so far I haven't heard of one. I pray there will be. A righteous banshee, a symbol of the purity humanity can hold, deserves a righteous send off, but I don't know. Her family deserves privacy, but we deserve a chance to say goodbye, don't we? Don't we deserve to wish her well on her journey? I suppose I already know the answer to that: she does not want what she hasn't got. She said to keep it simple in the most bombastic ways possible, and that's probably the lesson I'm supposed to walk away with. The night is long but the day will come. Trouble will soon be over, sorrow will have an end.