''What’s the worst thing I’ve stolen? Probably little pieces of other people’s lives. Where I’ve either wasted their time or hurt them in some way. That’s the worst thing you can steal, the time of other people. You just can’t get that back.''
- Chester Bennington
He's right aint he? That's something he can never get back. As is the time you've wasted on people that weren't worth your time, your attention, your love. It's crazy how we function. Like that one line says ''we accept the love we think we deserve''...
But Chester didn't steal our time. Only another part of us we'll never get back. Our love, affection, a piece of our hearts...
I won't ever be able to explain this, it's a different kind of love, different kind of affection. I can't explain it to people that never felt it, why almost two years later I still miss him, it still hurts, it still sucks. And I'm pretty sure this won't ever change. I will always love him, I'll always miss him. Like a best friend. Like a part of me I won't ever get back. Thing is, things happened in my life that had my heart shattered into pieces so tiny they could pass through a hole in a needle, and then losing one of my biggest heroes, a man who's words and music I grew up with, a man who made me feel like I'm not alone and like I'm strong enough to keep going even when all I really wanted was to give up...well that felt like a freezing wind blowing over and taking those tiny pieces with it.
It hurts. It's not fair. And it's just like losing any other person that I knew personally, since people so love to use the line ''but you didn't even know him''. Who the hell cares if I knew him or if I didn't. His music was very personal, very honest, in a way we all knew him. In a way he exposed his darkest thoughts with us. And to be quite honest, even in the shape and form he was present in my life, he did more for me than most other people did. He was a better friend than most my friends were.
It's something else entirely, putting an album on, letting it play, losing yourself in the lyrics and just knowing, there's at least one person out there that understands 100% just how hard some things are, how impossible picking yourself up from the ground is and just how hard it is to move on after being completely defeated.
What's missing is not just an amazing musician and an amazing person, but also an amazing teacher who taught us all how to be fearless, how to be passionate about whatever the hell we love doing even if the entire world thinks it's stupid. He taught us that struggles don't define your life, and that just because someone's are harder that doesn't mean yours are any less important. And the most important lesson he gave us? Love. How important it is to love each other. How important it is to spread love, how love can defeat hate. In one of his last shows, he talked about the tragedy in Manchester, he said;
''Real quick, before we get into this next song, I've come down there and sang with all my friends. I just want to make sure before we leave and go back home, that we pay our respect and share some of our love and our prayers for the families and the victims of the tragedy at the Manchester Arena. My heart has never been broken so much, until the day I found out that that tragedy happened. And since that day I've been wearing these little earrings with the bees in 'em, I know that’s a symbol of strength and hope in the city of Manchester. And I'm gonna keep these in, I'm gonna keep these in, until all this nonsense stops and we can start loving each other, we can stop hurting each other, because we believe in something different, than the person standing next to us. The one thing that can’t be defeated is love, right? You can conquer hate by ignoring it, you can destroy it by loving the person next to you. So I want everybody here tonight to look at the person standing next to you and just tell 'em that you love 'em and you are happy that they're here with you tonight, having a good time. Listening to music. Celebrating life. We don't care what you look like, we don't care where you come from, we don't care what you believe in. We love every single one of you out there, and nothing will ever change that. With that said, let's sing some songs together.''
These are words to live by. We tell each other how we feel too little. We hate too much and not love enough. We let our pride and fear cloud our real emotions. Telling someone you love them, care about them, compliment them, it's such a small thing to do, and it feels like it's nothing, but, not only you don't really know how many more chances to do just that you have, it's a small thing that might change someone's day, hell life. Someone might be going through a really rough day, rough patch, and a nice word is more than uplifting.
Funny thing is, he wouldn't even want us to feel this way, to feel sad each time their song comes on the radio, to feel broken watching their videos. But I can't help it, there won't ever be a day when I can look at them and be okay with it, a day when it won't make me sad...when their last album came out, I wasn't really convinced, never gave it a real chance to be fair. Never fully listened. It was so different and I suppose I loved the old Linkin Park too much. So when they came close enough on tour for me to go, I said to myself, I've already seen them so I'm just going to catch them on their next tour with another album. And now, I doubt there's many things in my life that I will regeret as much.
Later when I let myself truly listen to ''One more light'' I realised how much I loved it. Every single song on it. They are perfect. They sound different yes but they are perfect non the less. Songs like One more light, Heavy which is mostly misunderstood, it's not depressing it's uplifting, Good goodbye, Nobody can save me, Battle Symphony...they seem to all make sense now, and they're honestly hard to listen to. Maybe we didn't notice before, but now they feel like a cry for help, and I just can't help but wonder...what if? Was there something we could of done? Unlikely I know...but just...I wish somebody could help him.
''Should've stayed. Were there signs I ignored? Can I help you not to hurt anymore? We saw brilliance when the world was asleep, there are things that we can have but can't keep...''
Chaz and his band is that one constant in my life that I just can't really bring myself to say goodbye to. At all. Like Supernatural. Going through my old things, you can see photos of their posters on the walls of my old rooms, actually I still have one of Chester just above my bed, hard to look at but I can't bring myself to tear it down. There's logos all over my old text books, bands shirts, their names are even on a pair of my first (awfully worn) red Converse. It's just...they became a part of me over the years, a part of who I was, a band that defined me...
I won't ever be okay with what happened. I can't honestly even use the word suicide together with his name, feels like a nasty swear word. I think an accident would of been easier. Or I don't know a sickness, even if I couldn't stand him suffer more than he clearly had to.
I don't believe in another lives, I don't believe in heaven or hell, but just to make it easier on myself, to let me get some sleep at night, I have to think there's something somewhere, a better place. Maybe not heaven but something of the sort. I have to believe that everyone I loved and lost is there, happier than they were down here among us, as horrible as that sounds. My heart aches today, and it always will be. But on the other hand I am eternally grateful for the universe to allign and make us live in the same era. To have met and know Chaz. To be influenced, changed and touched by his music. To feel a different kind of love because of him. To experience love and understanding and comfort. I can't change what happened but what I can do, is move on and try to follow in his footsteps, to be a better version of myself, to be what he'd want us to be, live life everyday to ''make Chester proud''.
I love you Chaz, I miss you.
http://chester.linkinpark.com/
http://musicforrelief.org/one-more-light-fund/
https://www.changedirection.org/
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