Like a lot of America apparently, Ty and I stayed up last night watching coverage of Prince and his life. People were lined up outside his home/studio in Minneapolis. People filled the streets outside the Apollo in New York. There were vigils in Los Angeles.
I said I wasn’t shocked by his death and I’m not. We’re all going to go and we could literally go any time, any day. I guess most haven’t realized that yet. Maybe it’s best you don’t. But, when someone does pass it’s when we take time to reflect on his life. While I consider myself a Prince fan, I didn’t have the time to really get into his life. I thought I knew him, like a lot of people. But, I didn’t know until after he passed that he was born epileptic, that he was a Jehovah’s Witness, that he had been married twice and had two children that had passed. That’s OK. Prince wasn’t really part of my life. He was a musical genius whose talent marvels me and makes me a bit jealous. He, for me, is an example we are not just biological robots because I find it impossible to believe that taken came from his DNA. It came from “beyond”. I was thinking about that. These geniuses don’t seem to produce geniuses like them. Sometimes you’ll see an athlete whose offspring will have similar traits, but the genius levels don’t seem to get passed through the DNA.
Back to the Prince tributes, the lesson for us is this. Take the time to get to know people before they pass. Not celebrities. Your friends, your neighbors. Learn their stories. We all have them and each of us has a pretty amazing one.
