When news of David Bowie’s death broke this morning, I found out not through social media or a news outlet—I woke up to more than 20 personal messages offering condolences, making sure I was OK. (The first thing I had to do was figure out what terrible thing had happened.) My Reader colleague Kevin Warwick even brought me a doughnut, knowing I’d need sweets to ease the emotional pain. Whether because I’ve told them myself or just because of how I live my life, everyone around me knows how much Bowie means to me. Maybe they just never really knew why.
What should have been the hardest time of my life came relatively easy. Besides the physical pain, the hardest part of going through cancer and chemotherapy is the transformation your body goes through. You get thin, you lose your hair, you’re taught to put on clownish amounts of makeup to make yourself look well. It was what Bowie had been training me for my entire life. Losing all the weight was my Thin White Duke phase, my crazy wigs and outfits were my Ziggy Stardust phase, and the caked-on makeup was my Aladdin Sane phase. And all the while I had Bowie’s voice in my head: “You’re not alone.”
