Where did 2016 go? It seems like no time ago I was wishing for summer to arrive, then wishing that summer would rush by so our annual big vacation would come around more quickly.
Now that vacation is long over and we are into December with Christmas just around the corner
As 2016 draws to a close I look back and think of the famous faces we have lost this year and there certainly were quite a few.
I think the biggest shock and the celebrity death which affected me most was David Bowie. I grew up on Bowie music, bought all the records and his music was the soundtrack to much of my teens. I was fascinated by his transitions into different characters and the change to his sound. While I was never a fan of his more recent work, I was devastated when I switched on the TV back in January and saw the news, I subsequently played his albums in the car for many weeks to follow.
I remember some years ago, saying, to nobody in particular, ‘when David Bowie dies, that will be a big piece of my growing up laid to rest’. And so it was.
Prince’s death was also a shock, I was never a really huge fan but as his back catalogue played out on TV and radio, I remembered what a talented musician he was and remembered good times in my life listening to his music.
For me, the saddest moment was when I heard the news of the passing of Muhammad Ali. I was practically brought up on boxing, my dad was a huge fan, he would look forward to receiving delivery of his Boxing News magazine and in the days before cable and home satellite tv he would go to watch fights beamed in to the local cinema. Our house was filled with Ali t-shirts, photos, replica trophies, books, videos, and newspaper cuttings, I seem to remember he even wrote to the big man himself once.
My parents are terrible communicators, I maintain they were the last people to know that Princess Diana had died, it was only when I called them that fateful day at 5pm to complain to my dad that the Premier League football had all been cancelled, that they finally found out. So, it was inevitable that I would be the one to break the news to them about Ali’s death over the phone. Sadly the same day, my Godfather, also an Ali fan and very good friend of my parents in their younger days, also passed away.
I inherited my dad’s love of the sport although it has changed so much since the days of Joe Frazier, Ali and the other greats. ‘Ali Bomaye‘
While I’m not one for holding celebrities and famous people in high esteem (they are just humans like the rest of us after all), many of these people touch our lives in some small way and will, just like the rest of us, have family and friends who will miss them for who they were, not what they were.