ARETHA 'RESPECT' FRANKLIN'S : PASSING OF ANOTHER OF THE TIMELESS LEGENDS! THE END...

We will miss AF not because she will not make anymore songs, because she had taken ill and had probably moved beyond her most creative and resonating achievements. 

No, for those of us who have almost grown up with and/or parallel to her, inhabited the world at the same time, though in different lands.  

We will miss her in the knowledge of knowing that this legend, AF, has now passed on. 

And that it is the continuation of a trend; the passing of the legendary figures of our lifetime. 

The passing of the giants; of the men and women whom we believer cannot be replaced. The expansion of the void which they are leaving, in the physical and mental world. A void which is also destined to claim us.

We knew that it is not given to humans to live forever, because that is not possible, so we should have and must have know that AF would, as some point, passed on. 

It should not have been unexpected, so we should not have been so greatly shocked. 

AF had attained a certain age, so, her death, painful and sadness evoking as it is, was not the death, the passing of a rising star. 

It was the death of a consummate and very productive Shinning Star. Both in the fields of music, civil rights and humanitarian endeavour. 

AF has made her contribution, a large contribution towards bringing happiness to us humans. 

And, for that we are grateful. It is no point thanking her at this point, since she is now beyond reach, except of the memories those of us who have heard and loved her retain. 

But we are grateful. Even as many or all of us who are moved, might have used the event to contemplate, to anticipate our own demise. Our own passing.

It will not achieve any purpose finishing by declaring that ARF should 'rest in peace', since 'peace' is the fruit of death. 

So, suffice to say, may her relatives find the strength to come to terms with their loss of this much loved relative, and continue to live their and enjoy their lives. 

Live it well, in the knowledge that, it is at times like these, the passing of ARF, that we do mourn, though not really for the departed, but for our own anticipated passing.