Rick obits thread

Jan 3, 2017 0:46:03 GMT Mrs Flittersnoop said:

Dec 31, 2016 15:51:29 GMT @catlady said:

Its precisely a week (to within the half hour) when I first heard the news about Rick from my friend on Skype. I expect everyone else remembers where they were, what they were doing at the time, and how they found out very clearly too

The first thing I did after seeing the news headlines for myself was re-register on here

No, I had to search for it. Christmas and New Year are a blur of driving and lists and schedules. I only remember sitting here, reading the forum and searching for new news. All the news that mattered came through here.

Then I remembered that I got a text from one of my sisters. It arrived during a long drive and I picked it up while I was shopping with my ancient MIL. It just said, "Sorry to hear about Rick." She's not a fan, I wondered if she'd just heard about the heart attack, but I knew in my heart it wasn't that. I came here as soon as I had a quiet minute. And I thought ... shoulder??!!

Now I keep waking up and thinking, shit, he really is gone. I've been a fan of someone or other since I was 5 years old. OK, it took a few more years for the rock'n'roll to kick in, but all the others had ceased operating as part of their bands by the time they went. Brian, out of the band. John, a long time since the band had been together. Jim, another sister told me quite a long time afterwards - he wasn't famous enough to be in the headlines.

But Rick, despite being "out" of the touring band, was still part of Quo. He was still rocking, the heart attack did not mean he had to stop, only slow down. But now he is really gone. Quo will go on, but need I say, even in spirit, it will not be the same Quo. The circle was broken long ago, but the heart and soul were still there.

I asked a medical person, how do you get an overwhelming infection from a shoulder injury? (I am assuming here that it wasn't an open injury. I have no right to assume that, but it's common to hurt your shoulder but not common to get an open injury.) She said, two things, yes, it is possible for infections to start from trauma, not common, but quite possible, and it's likely that we don't know the whole story. (Which is self evident.) But it means he was very frail, more frail than we knew.

Thanks for mentioning memory. Maybe this time next year, I will still remember the details. I hope so.

Two months can seem a long time in such a turbulent year as 2016 was with Quo (and for the music world in general of course)

I thought I had run out of things "all Quo" to talk about and it was time to stop repeating variations around the same theme - hence my departure from the mb. Knowing Ricks delicate health situation was one thing, I would never have stopped to think that my return would be prompted by the loss of him!   The hope had been that maybe by next year there would have been some side projects to discuss (FF orientated) and it was that I was hoping would give me constructive reason to return.

With his loss, those motives seem so shallow now but the sad irony is that the PLC project was indeed in the fires of planning production and any return to the mb would have been under starkly happier circumstances

The prize in the summer had been that Rick was still with us after that most critical of heart attacks. Despite my underwhelmed view of the Aquostic and LNOTE sense of profound anti-climax, what had been of paramount most importance was that Rick was alive. 

There had seemed to me to be a sense of reassurance that he was somehow "safe" this time in his recovery (however frail he was) and that his future suddenly looked longer and more assured than it might have seemed. I know that privately I had worried that he would indeed meet his fate on the stage, and the fact that the risk of this happening was substantially reduced through his withdrawl from the Quo touring frenzy seemed something to cherish indeed.

That makes his loss all the harder still now, a true twist of cruel fate. We all know as fans how we feel - it doesn't bear thinking about how his family, friends, band-mates and management team closest to him feel

Without knowing the official details, speculation is never wise, appropriate or sensible - but the concerned mind finds its hard not to believe that his very weak heart and compromised immune system would not have played some part in the subsequent twist in his medical fate connected with the injury and severe infection right at the peak of the festive season.

Edit: Just seen CG's thread with the confirmed details