Kirsty Bosley: Who are we to judge? Have no shame in feeling grief-stricken

This is my final draft, but I know that I'll likely read it tomorrow and feel uncomfortable about it.

After scrapping the fifth first paragraph attempt, I turned to my workmates and told them that I wasn't going to write it. That everything I tried to say sounded wrong, gross and ingratiating.

It wasn't until I finally decided not to write about it, and told my colleague such, that I realised why I'd found it so difficult. "It's so strange how grief-shaming is a thing," fellow writer Bram said to me. I realised that he'd hit the nail on the head.

Sharing my feeling of very real and very painful grief at the loss of Prince felt socially wrong and a little uncomfortable. I was thankfully at home when I read the news that the relentlessly talented virtuoso had slipped from the mortal coil, and I was hit by what felt like a very sudden and very devastating blow.

As more and more outlets confirmed that a body had been found at Paisley Park, I began to talk myself around to the fact that it might just be someone else that worked there. This was surely a case of Chinese whispers?

By the time Prince's spokeswoman confirmed the miserable news to the world, I was hiding under my duvet. Feelings of disappointment, loss and sadness struck me so harshly that I was overwhelmed by it.

The idea that I'll never see him or experience one of his generous encores left me feeling dejected to such an extent that the word 'dejected' doesn't seem to do it justice. The tears came in waves, and truth be told, still do when I think about what it means. What a loss.

Those feelings were quickly followed up with a sense of embarrassment. I apologised profusely to my boyfriend for sobbing over my dinner, and again as the tears fell long after the plates had cleared away.

I'm even aware that by reading this some of you will feel embarrassed for me, or concerned that I'm not quite right in the head. Why am I crying over someone I've never met?

It's one of those questions that seems to crop up every time there's a tragedy. I remember when a wave of Facebook profile pictures were changed to incorporate French flags when the nation was hit by terror attacks. "WHAT ABOUT SYRIA?" people commented. "People are dying all over the world. What about Beirut? No one changes their profile picture for them. . ."

Grief was labelled some kind of bandwagon that people were happily jumping on. To publicly declare yourself bereft about something that doesn't directly affect you opened you up to ridicule and criticism.

Mourning something that wasn't happening on your doorstep became something to hide, or be ashamed of, even if you couldn't help it.

How can anyone help how they feel? Grief is a by-product of love, and love is what sustains us. Even as I write this, I feel a weight on my chest, one that bears down heavily when I think of Prince, and one that is only alleviated by the uplifting power of his music.

Sure it might sound stupid to you, but how can I change it? Is my grief false just because I didn't know the man on a personal level?

And even that is arguable. Prince's musical output was famously plentiful, covering everything from his sexuality to religion, natural disasters and raspberry berets.

He was known for pouring so much of himself into the creation of music that he'd wake musicians up in the middle of the night to jam just because he had an idea. He was rumoured to have stayed awake for ludicrous amounts of time because he just needed to make music. It was part of the very fabric of who he was, and he gave it to us readily and generously.

So did we know him? How much of a person do you ever really know anyway? And what percentage of them do you need to know in order to grieve?

We're humans, and nothing is that simple. Isn't the fact that he just died not enough to warrant upset? And who has the right to judge this or measure it?

It's made me really think about what it is that makes us so connected to people, in particular the artists whose work forms and shapes our lives.

We listen to music when we're sad, dance to it when we're happy.

It plays us down the aisle when we walk to greet our dearly beloved. We stand in clubs for hours and hours with it blasting so loudly that we can't do anything other than move to the rhythm. We high five friends when 'our song' comes on, share our first precious moments as a married couple swaying to the sounds of musicians that we love in our first dances.

We let it invigorate us when we're feeling unmotivated, and it will likely play as we slip behind the curtain when we're lying in our coffins. It is not trivial – it matters.

I don't think love is too strong a word to use here. Fundamentally, that's what it seems to come down to. It's a strong sense of passion, that intangible thing that makes us give a damn. It's the same thing that makes us jump to our feet and scream when our team scores the winner. It's what makes us human.

Sure, the death of Prince does not mean the death of music. His back catalogue is plentiful, and there will always be other artists that invigorate and lift me.

But there'll never be another Prince, and I cannot get my head around that loss. That I'll never stand before him as he creates his incomparable brand of magic from thin air hurts, because I loved what he gave the world when he was alive. His legacy will live on long after I'm gone – he's made an impression on this world too big to ever forget.

And if I'm stupid for feeling the very real pain of his loss, then I'd better get used to the fact that I'm likely going to be stupid for the rest of my days.