“In the end it doesn’t even matter”

Lakshmi Rajan
Jul 21, 2017 · 2 min read

“Apparent suicide by hanging,” read the cause of death of Linkin Park’s lead singer Chester Bennington. I was curious, simply because I haven’t heard any of the Linkin Park songs and my facebook newsfeed was flooding with statuses and posts related to the singer’s death. I wanted to know how he managed to capture all these hearts and make their childhood days awesome. Honestly, I just wanted to take a stroll along Chester’s life, not because I didn’t want to sound dumb when people spoke about his death, but because I heard that after the death of Robin Williams, this is one of the strangest deaths people came across.
My first move, like every other kid affected by the top-down system of education, was to go to Wikipedia and read his life history. The questions in my mind were what was his life like, how effective were his songs and of course, why would he have done what he did!
His life as I read in most of the articles was a struggle, a struggle between career, health, addiction, passion and money. Many sources claim that he was a victim of child sexual abuse as well. His dependence on drugs and booze were pretty descriptive in many of their writing.
After drawing an image of his life in my mind I went on to listen to his songs. I should admit that I’m writing about Mr. Benington while his voice is playing in the background in high volume. One thing I noticed apart from the excellence of the band is the lyrics of each song. I personally loved the lyrics of every single song of his that I listened to. There was a connection that one could build even if they are listening to a Linkin Park song for the first time. They were just so beautiful.
And for the final answer that I needed as to why he did what he did, in simple words I wanted to know why he committed suicide? Factors that cause impairment in one’s daily life or depression as one would say, is an issue that needs to be looked into. It is not the first time or second time that cases of depression leading to suicide have been reported. Mental health has to be taken seriously, yes! But along with that, the alarming rates of the number of suicides should also be studied. It might be Robin Williams yesterday, Chester Bennington today and somebody else tomorrow. In simple words, it could you or me tomorrow if we are not aware of the importance of our lives. We’ve read about people taking their own lives as a sign of protest as well as people giving up on life simply because they could no longer take it.
Anyway, my day long journey with Chester was worth it. I can now agree with every single word people posted on social media about him making their childhood awesome. I guess like most of them said, “In the end, it doesn’t even matter!” You will be missed, Chester Bennington.

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Lakshmi Rajan

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Writing stories about those little connections.

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