I woke up late on July 13. I had slept in, which is unusual for me, but not really because it was the summer. Every day, when I wake up, I turn off my alarm on my phone, (chances are I woke up before it), turn off airplane mode, and check Instagram. It had become my routine over the summer.
I scrolled down, looking, half-interested at the pictures, until I saw one that caught my eye. I paused and looked at it. It was posted by one of my best friends, Beth. It was a picture of Cory Monteith and it said Rest in Peace. I swear my heart stopped. It couldn’t be true. Cory wasn’t dead, it was just another internet prank, like when Morgan Freeman “died.”
I immediately shot out of bed and turned on my computer. I googled Cory Monteith and there it was. The headline of every single website: Cory Monteith, Glee actor, dead.
People on the internet were saying that he killed himself. I wouldn’t believe it. I refused to. Cory would never do that. He had a loving fiancé and had finally gotten out of rehab. He was getting better.
I walked out of my bedroom, fighting back tears. My dad hugged me, but also warned me about the possibility that he really did kill himself. I yelled that he didn’t. Later that week, I got an update from the New York Times when I was at work. Cory Monteith had died alone in his hotel room in Canada due to an overdose.
About two week ago, when the Glee episode “The Quarterback” came out, was the first time in three years I didn’t watch Glee live. Partially because I had food poisoning, but also because I couldn’t bare it. I hadn’t cried yet. I didn’t want to cry. If I cried, he would be dead, and he wasn’t dead.
I watched it on Friday. I used half a tissue box. I cried so hard, I was shaking and sobbing. He was 31 years old. He was too young.
That’s why it took me so long to write anything about it. I didn’t want to acknowledge that any of this was actually happening, but I faced it.
One of my coworkers made fun of me for being upset about his passing. Others have as well, but I don’t think it is silly to miss a celebrity. It is hard to lose someone you know, believe me, I know. I’ve lost people who mean the world to me. When your world dies, nothing else seems to exist.
It was different when Cory died. I lost someone who inspired me, someone who I had dreamed of meeting. Now, I never can. It’s a different type of grieving. As said by Joan Harris in “Mad Men,” “A lot of people felt like they knew her and you should be sensitive to that.” She was talking about Marilyn Monroe.
I miss Cory. I miss him like I miss my friends who have passed away. It was painful losing someone I looked up to and would never get a chance to meet or work with. It was painful thinking of Lea Michele, going to bed with a fiancé, and waking up in a world that no longer contained the love of her life. It was painful knowing people are now judging him for the way that he died.
Chris Colfer’s character Kurt Hummel, summed up my feelings perfectly, “Everyone wants to talk about how he died, too. But who cares? One moment in his whole life. I care more about how he lived. And anyone who has a problem with that should remember that he was my brother.”
He was someone I felt I knew, and I really do miss him, every single day.
