Ticket to Prince’s first concert. Image: Wikipedia, via Minnesota Historical Society.
I’m sitting here at the hospital getting another iron infusion and trying not to kink the line while I type. The girls tried several times to get the IV in and that always makes me upset because I’ve been a human pincushion many times in my life. One night in this very hospital a couple floors up, nurses tried on and off for six hours to get an IV into me; they even tried my legs and ankles. The search was fruitless and the doctor eventually ordered a PICC line. (I’ll let you look that up.)
I hadn’t cried about Prince’s death till they stuck me the third time. I’ve been dazed about it since Claus called over to my desk this morning, “Mary? Prince has died.” This time, his German accent didn’t make anything better. My brow has been furrowed all day, but I hadn’t actually cried till about 30 minutes ago. The man had at least twenty more years of music-making ahead of him. This shouldn’t have happened.
When grieving, it’s good to be with folks; in this regard, I am grateful for my appointment. As I walked up to the reception desk, the lady was talking to a woman in the waiting area.
“Honey, I can’t believe it. I just can’t.” She shook her head then looked up at me. “What’s your name, sweetie?”
“Mary Fons. I’m not a candlelight vigil sort of person, but right now, I swear…” The receptionist gave me my number and said she felt exactly the same way. The conversation already in progress picked up again, now with me in it. Though its circumstances are by definition lousy, grief-induced familiarity amongst strangers is a beautiful thing.
The woman waiting with her mother (asleep) turned to me and said, “I’m as sad about this as I was about Michael.”
“Me, too,” I said. “Was it really a flu?”
“Oh,” the woman said and put up her hand like, ‘wait till you hear this.’ She said, “You gotta ask her about that,” and nodded to the receptionist.
I went back over to the desk and asked Rhonda what she had heard. She told me Prince was a Scientologist and that he was HIV positive. Scientologists, she said, don’t believe in medicine. She heard me he stopped taking his medication because the church told him not to.
My brain broke. My heart further broke. I covered my mouth with my hand and then almost bit through it. If this was true, if a “religious” organization told a sick man not to take his medicine, there’s a guru in Hollywood tonight who will breathe his last charlatan breath. (To be nice, when I take my hands off his neck, I’ll tell the rest of the group I’m sure he’ll be back soon.) The good news is that I don’t think I have to fly to L.A. tonight; there’s basically nothing online about Prince being connected to the Church of Scientology and certainly no information about them being blamed for his death. You know those people believe there are aliens living inside of us, right? (I’ll let you look it up.)
I remember seeing video of Prince playing an outdoor concert; maybe Wembley Stadium, sometime in the 1990s. He was playing “Purple Rain” and I realized I was watching a person do precisely what he was supposed to be doing with his life. It’s rare to see someone fulfilling their purpose so exactly, so absolutely dead-on their destiny, I felt like I was watching a wild animal. He was so natural there with his guitar, in the breeze, alone under lights, I recalled a fox in a wood or a mountain lion on a rock. He was that free, that easy, if you will. I’ve thought of it many times since then as I’ve thought about my own purpose, and what my own natural habitat is on Earth.
Prince, you were great. Thanks for the hologram on Diamonds & Pearls and all those notes.