The 27 Club

Today, I cried. I was in the kitchen, preparing a pretty nice brunch, when my daughter came in and asked if I'd heard the news. What news? The news about Amy Winehouse joining the “27 Club.” The what? The club of musicians who have died at 27 years of age. It took me a while to wrap my head around what she was telling me, and then my eyes filled with tears. Sad tears, disappointed tears, frustrated tears.

There will be all the usual postmortems and editorials about the evils of alcohol and drugs, and there will be those who will blame Ms. Winehouse and say that she somehow deserved it, that she did it to herself. In fact, those vilifications have already begun. And we don't even know what the cause of death was yet. People sometimes rush to judgment.

But let's not. Let's be decent and loving and honoring. Ms. Winehouse's talent was, it's true, overshadowed by the challenges and obstacles she faced. But we were all rooting for her, weren't we? We were hoping that hers would be a story of survival and overcoming. A story of talent redeemed and music to fill the soul with joy and wonder. Because Ms. Winehouse had a fabulous blues voice. I liked her style. The bouffant hair and the thick eyeliner and the whole retro look. She touched my heart. She reminded me of the singers of my youth. And now, sadly, she reminds me of Janis and Jimmy and Jim and Kurt and...well, too many, really. Members of the “27 Club,” all.

I don't pretend to know what was going on in Ms. Winehouse's life, but I do know this: It is not our destiny to be tortured souls, though some of us are. It is our destiny to be loved by God. And all of us are, though we might not realize it. Rest in peace, Amy.