The first time I heard Amy Winehouse’s voice was on the Soundtrack of Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, with her mellow, but nonetheless beautiful cover of Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.

I loved her then, strictly on the merits of her talent. It was a good year before I learned about Winehouse’s first LP Frank, cementing my love of her voice even more.  Then came Back to Black. I had You Know I’m No Good on my personal replay the way every one is now currently loving/bitching on Adele’s Rolling in the Deep. Amy was somewhere in a world only Janis, Billie and Ella could touch previously and people had taken notice. Amy could have taken that talent anywhere. Regrettably, as it seems with so many of the really great ones, she had her demons and they took her first.

Learning of her death Saturday gave me pause. I have learned, for the most part, not to read the comments section on most online editorials. Somehow, the shock of it made me temporarily forget and I was quickly reminded why I avoid such. The public never fails to disappoint in how vicious it can be at such a time. For every heartfelt RIP there were numerous “well no surprise there” type comments. And I have no words that would fully encompass the anger felt for the anonymous douche(s) that chose such a time to lay blame to Amy’s parents for not doing enough and to riff on “Rehab“.

Was the way she died a surprise? No. Was still a tragic shame? Yes.

I read various online articles. I was a little dumbstruck by it at first. I was waiting…for the retraction…waiting to read that it was a mistake, a hoax.  I really expected to someday relatively soon to read, hear that she was getting better.  That she was in the studio recording. That her new single/CD would be out. I was waiting…

From my Facebook, after I read the news, on Saturday:

Oh Amy, I was really pulling for you to prove all the naysayers wrong and come back swinging. May you now rest in peace in the afterlife that you were not able to find in the too short 27 years of your life here on earth.

I really was waiting for her to take that one cleansing breath. You know the one, when you know you’ve hit rock bottom, it can’t possibly get any worse, so you just breathe. In that breath comes a clarity that gets you to do nothing more than take another breath, but that first breath is the cleansing breath of hope that says you can do this/get through this as long as you’re breathing.

Alas, days later, I sit here with my iPod, breathing through various Winehouse singles, duets etc shaking my head at the loss of the woman, the talent, the potential that could have been Amy, who I will still love tomorrow and I can’t help but think…

Just one more breath Amy, it might have been the one …