It's a story that starts the same way, all over again. There's a thoughtful text from a friend, hoping you'll be okay, and a heart that breaks when you open a window to the real world and see the words. "Chester Bennington killed himself". The first article I saw was on TMZ and I got the blunt headline.
It's been a little over a week and my socials are full of tributes, of thank yous, of heartbroken messages. I have left it until now because I couldn't find the right words, and I'm afraid there will never be any right words.
Linkin Park turned up unannounced in my life when I was thirteen. I had heard Numb on the radio, but the moment that changed everything was finding an old magazine my brother had brought back home. It had an interview of Linkin Park, and, in it, Chester was saying that Linkin Park was about accepting the chaos in your head. Thirteen was a horrific age for me, as I'm sure it is for many teenagers. I had just lost my grandmother, whom I was very close to. I was struggling to fit in at school, kidding myself into believing that the people whose jokes I laughed at and the boy I liked who dated all my friends were friends of mine, out in this world to look out for me. It wasn't easy for me to see my mum devastated over her mother's death. I was taking dance lessons and hated it, hated it with a passion, hated how everyone excluded me when I had done nothing wrong. I felt lonely and abandoned.
For the first time, I had found words that resonated with me. There was chaos up there. I didn't know what else to do so I turned to Linkin Park's music for comfort.
Linkin Park changed the game for me. I had a girl at my school lend me their Live in Texas and I adored it. I remember listening to it in the car with my brother, surprised that his scrawny little sister was following the same musical path as him. I spent my free time listening to the radio, patiently waiting for Numb, and then, Numb/Encore to come on so I could tape it and listen to it later. I borrowed Meteora at the local library and listened to it on repeat, asked for it at Christmas. Linkin Park were my band, there for me at the click of a button on a cheap CD player, there in ways no one else was, there in ways the school kids who told me "please don't tell me you like that kind of music?" weren't and never would be.
It took me seven years to see Linkin Park live. I queued from half 9 in the morning, underestimated the amount of people who would be there before me and still, was knocked off my feet. It was, and still is unreal to get to see my band and the man who changed my life in the flesh. I remember sitting down in the queue, listening to others' conversations, hearing a guy talk about his meet and greet. I probably had an embarrassing pair of heart eyes eavesdropping on someone's conversation, there and then. I was lucky to see them again four years later at Download Festival, when they played Hybrid Theory in full. Man, that was something. All my pictures from that day are awful, bar the ones taken with the friends I was with. You should see the look on my face. I was at the top of my hill, looking un-metal as ever in my flowery raincoat and my flower crown, staring at the stage in absolute awe. By that point, Linkin Park weren't my favourite band anymore, but they still had the power to steal my heart, easy as one, two, three.
Hearing about Chester's passing destroyed my heart. I had always found it hard to understand how people reacted when their favourite celebrities died. I had spent my childhood seeing my brother refusing to watch a Formula 1 rerun that would show Ayrton Senna, because he was too upset. Our copy of Senna collected dust on the shelf, unwatched, because he knew that if he watched it, he would be sad beyond belief. I have seen him cry when Lemmy died. But I didn't really understand until Tom Searle, and now, Chester Bennington. Losing an idol, a role model, someone whose words and works of art have had an influence on your life is like losing a little part of yourself. It's like turning the lights off and closing the door on a room. The only option you have is sit in the dark and reminisce. Coping with your role models' mortality is another thing that is tough to stomach. They have influenced your life so much that it is hard, sometimes, to remember that they are human just like you, and that in the blink of an eye, they can be gone.
The truth is, I'm genuinely heartbroken and it feels like I have lost someone close to me. I read the words and I still cannot believe them. Love and tributes are pouring left, right and centre and a small part of me cannot quite comprehend that the man who changed my life for the better is gone forever.
I still nursed the little teenage hope of, one day, meeting Chester. Imagining myself actually saying words was a bit optimistic, but given the chance, I would have taken it. I knew a couple of people who had been lucky enough to cross paths with him and listened to their stories with the awe of a little girl. I would have just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for helping me understand that my pain was okay and normal. Thank you for creating music that helped with my anger, my sadness, all these raw, sharp feelings I didn't know what to do with when I was so young. Thank you for those life lessons. Thank you for giving me a little bit of hope, a little bit of light, for putting a smile on my face the two days I was lucky enough to see you perform.
I hope you found, in the other side, the home you gave me.