Today (December 08 2021) marks 41 years since the tragic passing of John Lennon. Many of you reading this will remember the moment, the exact spot you were in when you found out, for the rest of us, born a little later, we missed the shock of that day but are still left with the same feeling of loss.

I often feel that this loss is due in no small part to a bit of guilt. In John, the world had a figure that despite his flaws was trying to make the world a better place and trying to become a better version of himself in the process. Be it protesting for peace or for perfection in parenthood, John showed us that as people we are allowed to grow, we are allowed to get it wrong and we should be afforded the opportunity to put it right.

Emerging as he did after a five-year hiatus, where his sole purpose was to work on his relationships, John returned to public life the very definition of the ‘new man’. In those 60 or so months, being a father to Sean and devoting himself as a husband to Yoko, John was making the most of his second chances.

Announcing their return in the press, John and Yoko were ready to face the world again. Having been given time, space and room to grow, we got to see a new couple emerging, one where the dynamics had changed. On their comeback album, Double Fantasy, it is Yoko who has the bite while John has become sentimental, philosophical even, about his life and where it is going.

Sharing an album with Yoko and one on which he addresses his past misdemeanours and his future desires to be a better husband and a better father, it is hard not to feel the warmth that is radiating off John when you read about that time.

In ‘Watching the Wheels’ he answers back those who can’t fathom what they see as a waste of talent, in those 5 years of inactivity. John is happy to watch the shadows on the wall, it was his time and he deserved it. Being as he was then, a househusband, might not have seemed very rock and roll at the time but with the benefit of hindsight and as a parent to a young child myself I have nothing but respect for a man who faced with an opportunity to go around again, chose wisely, chose his family above his ego.

That guilt that feeds our sense of loss for me is rooted in not always knowing and appreciating what we have until it is gone. It is easy to criticise a man who made mistakes but at times it is easier to forgive him and offer respect where it’s due when you see the commitment he put into correcting them.

The John Lennon of December 1980 was happy, the very thing he had spent a lifetime pursuing, sometimes down the wrong paths for sure, but he had found it in coming to peace with a lot of baggage and making a new life for himself, one with a fresh outlook on what really matters to him.

That he found what he was looking for, makes his death all the more of a tragedy and in these times where we need a calm head and a clear thinker, there is a huge John-sized hole in all our lives.

Rest in Peace

John Winston Lennon – 1940 – 1980