Thought not.
I'm lucky, I only had three to write about this year, and none of them were people who were a huge part of my life.
I won't say enjoy.
I met him once, and talked to him on the phone once, and that was enough to think of him as a friend. From other people I've talked to, I understand he had that effect on a lot of people, and not just because he was pretty. He made friends everywhere he went. He made people feel happy and good. He was one of the few true empaths I've ever met, and whether he consciously knew what he was - I have no idea if he believed in esoterica or not - he knew instinctively how to use that ability to improve people's lives. All the conversations I've eavesdropped on, all the forums that I've lurked in, and I have yet to hear ONE person say a negative thing about his personality.
His music, sure. He was approximately two thirds of a boyband (with the other two members comprising the other third) that made pretty appalling music, that I nevertheless happened to quite like, because it made me happy. In this country at least, he and his boys have been forgotten, except perhaps by a couple of women around my age who remember a year or so in our teens where we found ourselves periodically squealing with joy when he came on the television.
Of course, anyone who's privileged enough to have been able to call him a friend, will never ever forget him.
I was sick a lot when I was in my early teens, and spent many school days in bed, bored out of my mind, watching Trouble (a teen channel) and waiting for California Dreams and Saved By The Bell to come on. One day Mom let me call in to the channel, for a competition they were running, and to my delight I got to chat to their resident celebrity. I answered the questions correctly, and won concert tickets. And I made a friend, when he called me back after I'd given my details to the officials. He wanted to know about school, and my friends, and my illness, and my family - and unlike most people in his position, he genuinely cared about the things I was telling him, however stupid they were.
Even as a kid, it wasn't ever possible for people to hide how they felt from me.
I went to the concert, although Mom tried to ban me from doing it, saying I was too young. I met him and his band. He hugged me, and kissed me on my cheek, and called me beautiful - and he meant it. This piece of blonde hotness, who teenyboppers went wild for, really truly thought that chubby awkward me was beautiful.
In 2005, he'd long stopped releasing music - in England, anyway - and when I happened on a news article that said he was sick, I was worried. And then I stopped worrying, because it seemed utterly ludicrous that someone who was so full of life, someone who brought sunshine and goodness to the lives of everyone he met, could have something inside him that wanted to kill him. It couldn't possibly beat him, could it? He'd fight. Of course he would.
He did. He beat AML once. He went into remission after six months of fighting, and stayed that way for several years. He wasn't WELL, but he didn't have leukemia. He had to take a lot of drugs, including steroids that made his weight balloon. He didn't look anything like a boyband member anymore. He lost his hair, and I'm told, his sex drive. He never lost his goodness. He never stopped caring about people, never stopped wanting to make things better for everyone he met.
I'm not sure when his cancer came back. I know that he died on September 8th. I didn't find out until October, and after the initial tears, one of the things I felt most was cheated. Like someone had stolen something from me that was irreplaceable. Strangely, I was also a little offended, because he died and he didn't come to me. I know how ridiculous that is, especially considering the amount of bitching I do about ghosts. I guess I just wanted to see him again.
He made me laugh. He made me yearn. He made me lose a lot of my early cynicism about love. I've had a lot of wonderful men in my life since, but he planted the seed that eventually chipped away at the walls that I built around myself as a pre-teen and teenager. He saw the beauty in me at a time when I couldn't, or wouldn't.
I will never forget him, and I truly believe that everyone who ever met him will say the same.
Rich Cronin, here's to you.
Richard Burton Cronin - August 30th 1974 - September 8th 2010
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