Hello All:
Well, it is finished - our beloved Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, has left this plane of action and joined the Ancestor Angels - leaving us mere mortals here to mourn and miss her.
When we got the prayer call, we all went into immediate prayer warrior mode, hoping against hope that God The Living Spirit Almighty would invoke one of His miracles and allow her to remain with us - just a little while longer.
But of course He has the final say, and had already determined the day and the hour that she was to make her transition. She had meant so much to us all. We took soooo much pride and delight in her singing, her artistry, her elegance, her courage.
In the back of all our minds, we could not help but wonder why she had to go the way she did - why in so much pain when she had given us so much pleasure throughout her - and many of our - life.
We love Aretha - present tense. It's too soon to think of her as gone from us. We are all family in every sense of the word. Aretha's pain was our pain. Her sorrows were our sorrows. Her joy our joy.
We revered Aretha who could translate our feelings through her song - that powerful voice that we all envied but could never emulate - even though we tried in vain.
My mother was aware of Aretha long before I was. In fact, it was embarrassing, as a teenager, to find that my mom knew all the words to her song and what they meant, long before I did. All I was doing was bopping to the beats. Before she entered the realm of pop RnB, she sang great blues songs; but when she sang RESPECT, everything changed - all of a sudden we all knew who ReRe was. She was a hit and never looked back. There was no song that she did that we didn't love.
That was over 50 years ago, and our love for her has continued unabated. We commiserated when her marriage fell apart. We were proud when she was invited to the White House by President Obama. No one will ever forget the moment she elegantly and capriciously threw her gorgeous mink coat to the floor and continued to sing NATURAL WOMAN to such an extent that Carol King was crying with joy.
By all accounts she had a troubled life from childhood, but that did not sully our love for her. We all had our own trials and tribulations, but none of us had the capacity to transform them into the musicality and messages that reached deep into our souls.
Please enjoy the memories of our dear sister as she joins the pantheon of other Ancestor/Angels who have gone before her.
https://www.allmusic.com/
If I wasn't already an avid fan and admirer of Aretha, the icing on the cake was to find that she was also a Soror - a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., a tribute to all the wonderful things she has done for Black people over the course of her lifetime.
Our love and condolences to her family, fans, Sorors, and friends.
Contrary to the reports in the meanstream media, her reign as QUEEN OF SOUL has not ended. She is forever immortalized in our hearts.
Contrary to the reports in the meanstream media, her reign as QUEEN OF SOUL has not ended. She is forever immortalized in our hearts.
We will all remember TO SAY A LITTLE PRAYER as she moves on to the next plane of action
Stay Blessed &
ECLECTICALLY BLACK
Gloria
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