When the newsflash email popped on to my iPhone, telling me that Amy Winehouse, famous for singing about how she wasn’t going to go to rehab, was dead, I wasn’t surprised. It was sad, but it seemed inevitable, somehow. Now it seems her closest friends and family felt the same way.
Janis Winehouse, Amy’s mother, has admitted to The U.K. Daily Mail that she felt her daughter’s untimely death, “only a matter of time,” after spending the day with her just twenty four hours before the singer passed away. It’s a parents worst nightmare, watching your child slip away, and Janis Winehouse is doing it on an international stage.
“She seemed out of it. But her passing so suddenly still hasn’t hit me,” she told The Mirror, another U.K. tabloid regarding her last day with her daughter. She also shared that Amy said, ‘I love you mum’ at the end of their day together.
“They are the words I will always treasure,” Janis told the Mirror. “I’m glad I saw her when I did.”
Winehouse has taken a place in the so called “27 Club” – a long list of talented musicians who have succumbed to drug and alcohol problems in their twenty seventh year. She’s in unfortunately good company on a list that includes Kurt Cobain, Brian Jones, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.
As parents, this is a great moment to discuss drugs an alcohol with teens. Answering any questions your teens might have about Winehouse, and what’s happened to her, should provide some openings to help them see how dangerous substance abuse can be.
