Reghan Skerry

There aren’t many people I think of as personal heroes. There are people I like, whose life or work I admire, but they’re still just… people to me.

David Bowie has always been one of my heroes.

One of my clearest childhood memories is of staring at the cover of my father’s copy of ‘Aladdin Sane’, equal parts fascinated and frightened and not quite sure why. When I was seventeen, I fell in love with ‘Little Wonder’ (as much the video—and again, that feeling of being fascinated and unsettled at the same time—as the song itself), and started diving into the back catalogue. I never came out. I spent this past weekend looking forward to today, when I’d finally have the time to listen to ‘Blackstar’ without distraction.

I want to say more. Maybe I will, when it hurts less. But, for now, I’ll just repeat what I said on Twitter this morning: I didn’t realize until now that there was a part of me that truly believed that David Bowie would live forever.

• David Bowie Obituary
• “Or find your own Bowie. You will have it somewhere. That first play of Ziggy. That time you put food colouring in your hair. The night when lust became utterly confused with a different kind of longing. A longing to be in one of the worlds he told us about.”