"The King is dead, long live The King!" Prince is dead, long live Prince. "Who will cry for me?"

"The King is dead, long live The King!"

Prince is dead, long live Prince.

I see all the people crying over the death of Prince. I fully understand that. It is not much different than when any celebrity has died. Nor, is it unusual for people to express their grief when anyone close to them passes away.

I have often spoken and have often written on my Roland's Ramblings blog as well as elsewhere on the internet in regards to the topic of the responses to the death of someone close to us and of the importance of maintaining contact with family and friends.

How many times do people think or actually say “I’ll call 'so and so' tomorrow” or “I’ll see 'so and so' tomorrow” or “We’ll get together soon” or any other number of things like that? And then, nothing more happens. Then, all of a sudden, 'so and so' dies.

When the shock of the death of 'so and so' sets in, many people (if not most people) will think about all this, reflect upon it, and pledge to change their daily perspective of putting family and friends off to another day – That will last for about 5 minutes and then most of those people will return to their same old ways. Unfortunate, but true. How sad, how very sad indeed!

Like many people in the final years of life, I often think about the fact that contact and visits with family and friends is not as frequent as I would wish. Over my lifetime, I honestly believe that I have initiated contact with family and friends more than they have with me; and, I believe that I have been the one who has attempted to renew close contacts with family and friends, but, more often than not, nothing much has resulted from my attempts. I try to remind myself that everyone has busy lives with many things to do and that they have better things to do than to coddle an old man like me. I do believe that we 'old folks' get depressed easily, often, and at the drop of a hat.

So, here I am now, thinking over all this stuff because Prince has died and I see many people reacting to his death and commemorating his life. Of those doing so, I see quite a few people who are my family and my friends, many of whom rarely, if ever, take the time to visit me, let alone speak with me on the telephone, or send me an e-mail, or letter, or even a simple greeting card.

Well, while this latest tremendous outpouring of public grief and crying over the death of Prince is playing out, I cannot help but wear my heart on my sleeve and cry myself when I wonder: Who will cry for me when I die?