Words will never exist to express the sadness we feel when we lose someone. We know it's going to happen, everyone has their final day in this life, but it's still always heartbreaking. It's even worse when someone chooses to go. I've had friends take their own lives before, and losing someone to suicide is a moment in life you never get over.
We lost Chester Bennington of Linkin Park on Thursday, July 20, 2017. An undeniably talented musician, Chester had a limitless voice. Even more, he wrote some of my favorite songs. I remember being in art class during my high school years. I wasn't popular and I'd venture to say that my friends weren't either.
The art room was our solace, our kingdom, where we could be as weird as we wanted to be. When we were there, the outside world didn't exist. It was perfect. During class and our free hours when we'd return home to the art room to see Ms. Bryan, we'd jam out to whatever weird music we burned onto CDs.
Colleen was usually the one to make the mixes. Most of the time, it was edgy, Hot Topic music (you know, My Chemical Romance). But Colleen had made me a new mixed CD, and the featured artist was Linkin Park.
I loved it, and I really loved "Shadow of the Day." There's something about music, that when it's good, a song will strike your soul and change the way you view the world and even life. I played that mixed CD in class and on my way to and from school. Eventually, scratch marks made my CD destitute, but by that time, Radio 104.5 and iPods became my new methods of listening to music.
There was something about those days in the art room, listening to all of our weird, edgy music that cannot be lived again, but in that moment, to borrow from Perks of Being a Wallflower, "I swear we were infinite." The soundtracks to those moments live on, and I find myself singing aloud songs that take me back to happier times, times when I was infinite.
It's sad to see Chester go, and I cannot imagine what his family, friends, and band mates are going through. But the words he had were the soundtrack to my nirvana, and I hope we can all keep his memory alive when we jam out to Linkin Park in the car, or when we are at the gym and "Breaking the Habit" pops up on Spotify.
