This week has been really tough for me.

On Thursday night I heard the news and broke down. A friend or a family member didn’t die. One of my saviours did.

Many moons ago, I was an angry teenager. I was angry at myself and at the world. As an adopted person, you ask so many questions. Why me? Why wasn’t I good enough to keep? In addition to the pain of abandonment, I always felt different. Something was never quite right. I couldn’t do things other people could. My frustrations came out as anger.

I felt alone and out of place, no matter who I was with.

At 16 I was on a path of self destruction, everyone was out to get me, or so I believed. The world was a crappy place and I was just surviving in it. I felt no one really cared and ignored the pain I was going through. Maybe they just didn’t see it. I don’t know.

I am not a creative person, I am not spectacular in anyway, I’m not talented at many things. I couldn’t throw myself into something to escape the pain.

I cut myself, I drank and I did things that were not good for me. Why wasn’t life as easy for me as it was for others, I thought to myself.

In 2000, I was just 13 years old. I was into all kinds of music. Nothing really spoke to me yet. That’s when I fell in love with rock and metal. Hybrid Theory was nothing I had ever heard. I began listening to Metallica, Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana. I had been previously exposed to their music as a child but now, I appreciated it. Your music led me to some of those most amazing music that has ever graced the world.

But three years later when my pain was increasing (both physically and mentally), Linkin Park was the band I turned to. Hybrid Theory has been one of my all time favourite albums but it was Meteora that sang to me. In particular the songs ‘Somewhere I belong’ and ‘Numb’.

“I wanna feel what I’ve wanted all along, somewhere I belong.”

It’s as though you felt all the things I felt. For the first time in my life, someone was saying all the things I didn’t have the ability to put into words.

That song was on a loop, at full volume for months on end.

When I felt like dying, it was your music that calmed me. You were one of the reasons for pulling me out of that state. Seeing you play in the RDS while supporting Metallica was one of best days of my life. So not only did your music save me, you gave me great memories.

Now? Yeah, I still feel different, unspectacular and angry at the world but now I know that no matter what, music will always be there to pull me back as well the people who get me. I wouldn’t have known that if it was for your voice.

Even now, when my mental health is suffering, I know that even though you’re gone, you’ll still be there to sing what I’m feeling. Right now ‘Heavy’ is my go to song. I can’t help but cry when I listen to it, knowing how things ended.

So thank you Chester for giving us 17 years of your voice. Thank you for making us feel less alone. Thank you for putting into words the things I’ve always thought but couldn’t say. Thank you for creating music that speaks to millions of people who have felt the way I have felt. I have seen posts and talked to many people who were going through terrible times as teenagers. Even in the same school, none of us knew we were all going through stuff and all had the same thoughts and feelings. It just goes to show, you never know what goes on in people’s heads-even if you are in the same room.

I hope, wherever you are, you are at peace. Thank You again, for pulling me back. Your legacy will continue and I hope one day, my own children will find solace in your music when they’re feeling low, if they should feel unable to speak their minds aloud.

Forever Grateful,

Z.M

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