Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd co-founder died on Tuesday at 60. A misfit's misfit, Syd brilliant, reclusive, crazy as a loon, damaged, imbalanced, too familiar with darkness and fragile. Addiction masks mental illness, sometimes it triggers it too. But we've all lost loved ones along the way---dead and alive, precious people who don't fit in, who never feel right, and can't figure out why. They stay inside us, nurtured in memory, protected, beloved. Nothing we could do or say could convince them of this---unrequited in life, but not in death.
"Shine on You Crazy Diamond" was the band's tribute to a lost mate, it's the song I sing in my heart whenever a friend opts out---whether by overdose, or comatose, by suicide, or psychotic break. Syd gave us someone to believe in, a hero for the walking wounded. May the love and light you couldn't feel on Earth surround you now, like a sweet song.
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