Why I grieve Alan Rickman and David Bowie

This has been a rough week for music and film fans.

Many were devastated to hear about the deaths of David Bowie and Alan Rickman. They were both 69 years old, taken by cancer, and legends in their own right.

I spent the first day of spring semester feeling quite shaken by Bowie’s passing. When I told one of my best friends — and one of the biggest Bowie fans I know — the news, it felt like I was telling her that her best friend had died.

The morning I found out Alan Rickman had passed as well, I felt devastated and lost.

To an outsider, I may have looked silly, considering I have never met Bowie or Rickman. I didn’t feel the same amount of grief as I would have if someone I knew in flesh and blood died. But honestly, it came pretty close. While neither of these men knew I existed, I am connected to them through their art. I still feel their absence from the world.

As an avid Harry Potter fan, I felt an emotional connection to many of the characters. I’ve always appreciated Rickman’s portrayal of Severus Snape, one of the most fascinating and complicated fictional characters I’ve ever read. No one taught me about second chances more than Snape has.

Also, no one I know has helped me embrace art, life and my inner weird more than a David Bowie album. His ability to reinvent himself on his own terms with continuing success leaves me in awe and inspires me.

If you are made to feel the death of a celebrity who has left a thumbprint on your life is insignificant, it is far from true.

In fact, music and film are an important aspect of many of our lives. We develop relationships with artists, songs and characters in a way similar to how we develop those with our families and friends.

Both relationships make us experience a wide array of emotions — grief, frustration, admiration, comfort and joy. Both teach us more about ourselves and our lives. Both give us the sense that we no longer have to feel alone with our experiences.

And both get to live on through their achievements and the memories we hold.

Celebrities and fans are taking to social media to express their condolences. Among these, writer, actor and lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda tweets, “Surround yourself with the work they left behind. The work’s not going anywhere.”

If Davie Bowie or Alan Rickman have touched your life through their work, it’s okay to feel however you need to feel. In fact, leaving an impact is what art is meant to do. It’s the whole point.

— Whitney Howard is an English major who is down for a Harry Potter marathon with you, as long as you don’t mind if she is a sobbing mess. Contact her at whitney.howard@aggiemail.usu.edu or on Twitter @omgwhitshutup.