Reading the influence that Sinead O’Connor had on so many lives is a tad bittersweet. I remember the bald woman with the huge, melancholy eyes from my childhood. I remember the outrage over her SNL appearance and her true statements about the Pope. I remember her voice, her bravery, her struggles with the cruelty of this world, and her ever-present refusal to simply bend the knee. And based on these essays, I am far from the only one.

Knowing that others see far more than the one big hit. Seeing how her music and her politics and her humanity saw these people through good times and bad, tragedy and triumph, and so many other mundane things in between? It reminds me just what we lost when she died. And it also reminds me just how much we could still learn from her music and her life and her love.