David Bowie had died the day before my birthday, but the news didn't break in the US until my 36th birthday. January 11th, 2016. Someone said it must suck to have David Bowie die on your birthday. I corrected them, but all the news that day was about David Bowie. I was outside of it. I didn't really know his work. I was sad whenever anyone died, but didn't mourn like the rest of the world.
Three days later, it was my turn to be devastated. On January 14th, 2016, the world lost one of the greatest British actors to have graced the screen and stage. Alan Rickman, whom at some point I had a crush on, had died of cancer. No one had known he was sick. Except of course his wife and his closest friends.
I had loved the man. Not in a romantic way. And not the man whom his wife and friends had known. I had loved the artist. I had fallen in love with Colonel Branden. I had fallen in love with Severus Snape. I loved to hate The Sheriff of Nottingham, Rasputin, and Hans Grueber. I had cried when I realized Harry had cheated on Karen in Love Actually. He was so brilliant.
My friend Annie asked me on Facebook if I was okay. I told her I was, because of course he had a great life with a brilliant career. I had been in shock.
A Month later, maybe more, I was on IMDB.com. There was an in memorium video for artists lost so far in 2016. I made the mistake of watching it. Alan Rickman was second, and they showed him as Snape, saying his famous Harry Potter line, the heartbraking, "Always." I lost it. All the shock was gone. I wept for almost an hour. My husband was not home. I was home alone. All the pent up grief just let loose.
You see, Alan Rickman had been my friend during my psychosis. In the novels I had written about how I became a celebrity and moved to England, he and his wife had always been friends of mine. In my psychosis, I had believed these stories to be true. I felt like I had lost a close personal friend. Even though in moments of sanity I knew it was not true, I had watched interviews with him, read quotations. I knew I didn't know him, and yet my illness tricked me into believing I did. And in this grief I could not tell reality from fantasy. And when reality began to shine through again, I wept for the world at no longer seeing another brilliant performance of such an amazing actor. With such a voice.
There will be no voice like Alan Rickman's ever again. No deep soothing voice. And for that, I mourn.
Last night, I dreamed that I won a contest that I could hang out with the cast of any movie of my choosing. I picked Harry Potter. They asked me which one and I told them all the last one, including flashbacks and ghosts. The dream was littered with adventures and making movies of our own. But in the end, Alan Rickman had to die again, because he was in reality already dead. As he was dying in front of me, I threw my arms around him screaming and sobbing before falling back as he withered into nothing. The other cast members, Dame Maggie Smith and Emma Thompson said they didn't understand why someone who didn't know him was so upset.
