When We First Heard
Another Fan's Reflections
...I thought your tribute page was very beautiful. Thanks for sharing and
for opening your arms to those who are, like you, grieving over this terrible
loss. Thought I'd share a post with you, my personal reflections on what
INXS's music, and Michael's memory, meant to me vis a vis a city in Eastern
Europe...
PRAGUE WILL NEVER HAVE THE SAME LUSTRE...
...for the first time, I rented "The Kick Flick" by INXS for nostalgia's
sake, just yesterday. To my surprise, I noticed that three of its videos had
been filmed in Prague. I felt guilty all of a sudden, b/c ten years ago (I
was just a young kid then), I kept turning off MTV when "Never Tear Us Apart"
came on. At the time, I always thought, man, they are playing this video WAY
too much! Number one, I never realized that the video was filmed in Prague,
and number two, I was kind of going through INXS burn-out after overdosing on
their "The Swing", "Shabooh Shabbah", and "Listen Like Thieves". It has
always been a normal thing for me to dismiss a band when they become "too
famous". Therefore, I have until now been out of the INXS loop.
Most of all, I remember I had admired Michael Hutchence's sensitivity,
honesty, and openness as a songwriter and entertainer. He had a certain
charisma and vibrancy that many of his contemporaries lack. As I watch him
on this ten-year-old video now, I see the young man in a different
light...maybe because I am ten years older, but also, because I feel so
terrible that inside, he was a deeply tormented man though on the outside, he
seemed content and wondrously alive, brimming with soulful, musical, and
sexual energy.
I wish I had been smart enough to realize that Prague was once haunted by
Michael Hutchence and his INXS buddies nine years before I visited the
beautiful city for the first time, last October. I think I would have walked
on every bridge, sipped each Czech beer, tasted and absorbed all the colours
and wonder of Prague a little more fully if I had known Michael's spirit
inhabited it, and that he would never visit it again. I wish more than ever
that I had seen INXS in concert when I had the chances to do so, in whatever
city.
One tribute page owner said strangers are friends you haven't met. Michael,
I will miss you, this stranger, this friend I've never met and never will.
God be with your dear family and friends now, and your buddies in INXS with
whom you shared great music and good times. I think I will cry every time I
see a picture of you and your beautiful daughter, Heavenly. What a content
and proud papa you seemed to be, holding her in those photos...if only you
had shown what was going on behind that contentedness, so someone might have
helped you through whatever tough times you endured. Your life has affected
many of us; I can't speak for anyone else's feelings for sure, but I know
your death will affect me personally, though I never knew you in person, for
a long, long time. I hope truly that you have found happiness and peace,
wherever you are.
Anonymous
A letter to Michael Kelland Hutchence, a man who was Heaven sent.
It was one whimsical Saturday, that Saturday when the walls were covered
with sadness and my heart was overcome by the sharpest pain, by the darkest
mourning, by the most unbearable gloom...tears rushed trickling down my cheeks
as if they wanted to cross the earth so as at least a part of me would be able
to be close to you...and I wished to lie by your side...
I didn't consider myself strong enough to face the idea of never see you
again...I no longer would be able to tell you how much you mean to my life or
how much I love your music...now I wouldn't experience never more the
impatience of a new album, of a new show...I no longer would be able to enjoy
all the vitality and sensuality that only you knew how to give and convey on
the stage...now we never would be able to take some "birras" and I never would
be able to ask you after your little Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily, now you
wouldn't be able to introduce me to her...
I couldn't believe that our farewell was that way, so brief, so definitive...
I could feel how my heart broke into pieces...I could feel how it froze while
I was reading e-mails that told me you had left...actually tears were the
pieces of my frozen, broken heart melted away by the rage, by the powerlessness
of not be able to change the past, of not be able to understand the present,
of not want to live a future without you...
Just by a gaze, a mere smile, just by a sign would have been enough for me
to leave it all behind and run to you no matter what you'd needed...but now
without you, without the man that gave sense to my life so many times I would
feel nothing but everlasting darkness...life had become just a step to death.
Yes, you are right, this is the easiest, the selfish way...close all the
doors you opened for me one red-letter day, sadden, weep for you till the end
of time, fade away into the fog of the pain caused by your absence...my
gorgeous Michael, you don't deserve this, you made music to enliven our lifes,
to remind us that stormy days are eve of splendour, to show us that in the
world there is not only pain and hate but also LOVE...sometimes it's buried
deep down under the everyday life, the boredom...and that's why you taught us
how to dig for it, you Michael taught us that everything burns if we use the
right spark.
Michael, my delightful Michael...you have help me out so many times in my
life. I just don't know what would have become of me without your music,
without your energy, without your magic...Now the moment has come to help you,
now it's time for me to do something for you...that's why, with tears in my
eyes, I promise you I'm gonna be strong for you, I'm gonna be happy for you,
I'm gonna do my best so as not to cry anytime I see your pictures, your
magnetic look in the eye, anytime I hear your sensual voice, your catching
laugh...No, with tears in my eyes I promise you I'm gonna feel what you
wanted me to feel so when I hear your voice you will fill me up with more
joy, more vitality, more kindness, more LOVE...I'm gonna dedicate every
second of my life to you, my heart is gonna beat for you.
Today I can see brightness in the end of the tunnel, I can see beyond
myself, because I know that you have not left, you just have change your
appearance...you were Heaven sent and you have come back up there, where you
deserve to be. That whimsical Saturday Heaven fancied the brightest star and,
to our great sorrow, you were selected...but now your star is going to shine
forever into all and sundry of our hearts. Now I know that you are gonna be
still close to me, because you are part of me, because I owe you all that I am.
I know that everytime I need you, you will be there to help me, I will look up
the sky and you will guide my way with your light.
My loving Michael...spread out those white and soft wings that you deserve
so much because of all the LOVE you have gave us, spread them and fly to little
Tiger's side, protect her with your heavenly wings because now you are not only
her father but also her Guardian Angel.
My beloved Michael...I'm not going to tell you goodbye because I'm sure
we will meet again on the other side of the rainbow...maybe tomorrow, maybe
inside two months, maybe within twenty years...but in the meantime with tears
in my eyes I remind you that I will never forget you...with tears in my eyes
I want you to know that I will never stop loving you...
Susana (from Barcelona, Spain)
P.s: I will miss you but I will never let you die.
They could never, ever tear us apart.
**************************************
DO NOT STAND AT MY GRAVE AND CRY,
I AM NOT THERE, I DID NOT DIE.
**
MICHAEL KELLAND HUTCHENCE
1/22/1960 - 22/11/1997
**************************************
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Email: lys@mindspring.com
