This past Thursday, April 21st, 2016 we said goodbye to Minnesota's native son Prince. My whole family was distraught, he had been such a huge part of all of our lives. I grew up with two Prince-loving parents. So when I heard the news that he had unexpectedly passed I felt like I lost a part of my childhood. I grew up listening to his music, and hearing stories about what an amazing and unique individual he was. Now it's time to say goodbye, but I'm not quite ready yet. I'd like to reminisce a little bit longer.

His music has always been a part of my life. Both of my parents grew up listening to him, and they passed that onto their children. Growing up my older brother's favorite Prince song was always "Little Red Corvette." My personal favorite growing up was "Raspberry Beret," I loved that song before I even really knew what a beret was. I remember questioning what exactly a raspberry beret was, but it didn't matter to me since it was a song by Prince and I loved him. I recall always being so impressed with the lyric "She walked in through the out door," at such a young age I thought that was honestly one of the coolest things in the world. How do you walk in through an out door? You can't, at least when I was that little I thought you couldn't. Another favorite Prince song when I was little was "1999," I loved the song but I could never figure out what the big deal was about 1999. It was just the year my little sister was born, how come she got a song and I didn't? I still thought it was a great song even if I was a little jealous. That's how it always went, I'd love any Prince song even if I didn't understand it until I was older. It was just that way in my family you loved Prince and anything to do with him and you didn't question it.

The day after Prince's unexpected passing I had the opportunity to go to Paisley Park Studios, where his body was found and attend the impromptu memorial that has been going on since the world was told of his death. It was such a surreal experience. It was a sea of purple everywhere you looked. What was the most touching was just seeing how many lives Prince touched. There was a note I saw leaning up against the fence that said "Prince, you touched my soul and kept it alive. RIP". That's just one example at the memorial demonstrating the impact he had on everyone. One thing that stuck out to me was a lone thank you balloon among the purple ones. That struck a chord with me, up until that point I wasn't really sure what I wanted to say about his death and the impact he had on me. Seeing that balloon I realized what I wanted to say, I wanted to say thank you for all of the memories. I grew up hearing different Prince stories, the time my dad met him in an elevator and Prince gave him a slice of pizza. Or growing up my mom would always tell me about Prince changing his name to a symbol to defy his controlling record label. I have countless memories associated with Prince, and it's time to say thank you for them.

Not only was Prince a huge part of my life, I think I can speak for most people in Minnesota when I say that Prince has always felt like a personal friend. He chose to keep Minnesota as his home, he never left us. I don't know about everyone else, but that always meant a lot to me. That even when he became an international star he still never left us. Maybe we didn't think of him as a close friend, but a distant friend. Someone that you always cared for, and you would check up on them everyone once in a while, a friend that you always thought would be there. And now we've lost that friend and I think all of us are a little lost on what to do without him. I think he was just one of those people that you thought would always be around, he hadn't left us yet so why would he ever? I think it's time for us to accept that our native son has left us and it's time to say good bye.

Good bye Prince, thank you for all of the memories you gave us.