Prince was emotional. One of my biggest childhood stars poof gone.
Oh, for Dog's Kase!
I'm 20 or 30 years older, so I'll set aside musical taste differences. When I was a teen Jimmi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Mama Cass all died (Jimmi and Janis both in 1970). Prince was a musical icon? Jimmi, Janis, Morrison, and Cass were pop-rock demigods! Their deaths were sad, all because of various forms of self-destructive lifestyles. But I wasn't devastated. Rock icons who died in 2016? Try Keith Emerson and Greg Lake!
Your younger brother died (20- or 30-something)? That is sad! And I don't mean that scarcastically. I'm an only, no siblings. But:
* In 2003 my cousin, who was my next door neighbor, with whom I went through 12 years of school, for whom I was a groomsman and who was one of my groomsmen, died in a fiery head-on crash; with his wife; with his 10YO daughter; the other driver crossed the freeway median to hit him (not intentionally, probably asleep or intoxicated);
* In 1997 my Mom died of colon cancer after over 5 years of limited abilities due to two strokes;
* In 2004 my Dad died at age 90, a long life; living ~125 miles away, I could not visit him as often as I wished; in his small town, he was literally one of, if not THE, last of the men and women with whom he grew up; he was lonelier than I wished and could alleviate.
I could have said more than the above. I'm only in my early 60s, and probably half or more of my high school class has died, whether of stupidity or disease or tragedies like my cousin's. But it suffices. Death is part of life. To date, being born has a 100% death rate. How you've avoided knowing and dealing with that eludes me.
