Shurwayne Winchester celebrated another year of life on Tuesday. He started off his morning grateful, thankful for the gifts that he’s been blessed to enjoy- a happy, beautiful family, a career that has spanned decades and breath in his lungs. That feeling was however, tumultuously stomped on when news broke that Entertainment news editor at the Express Newspaper, and longtime friend, Wayne Bowman had passed away.

“This just cannot be real,” uttered the ‘Look Trouble Again’ singer. He’s been hard at work over the past few weeks, promoting his new releases, but on this day, all thought of music and its potential to earn him income, went out the door. “I sent a message to Wayne this week. I didn’t see a reply. I know sometimes he’s busy so I didn’t really make anything of it. Last night into this morning, I felt elated- happy, thankful for life. I was thinking of the calls I would get. There are certain people who would always reach out to me and in thinking about them I saw the void of those calls and those messages- the people who are no longer with us. I realized I am not going see those faces again, hear those voices again,” he said. Wayne Bowman is now one of those people Shurwayne and many others in the Arts and Culture fraternity, will no longer have the pleasure of seeing and engaging with.

Shurwayne expressed that the birthday sentiments often uttered by us all, ‘I wish you long life and health,’ is most times rattled off, almost on instinct, but when real thought is placed on the expression, reality dawns that life is fleeting. “If you really just take a second and think about it, you realize that it is so easy for life to be taken away and you understand how blessed you are to be here,” he said.

Over the years, Shurwayne Winchester has delivered countless musical anthems- songs that will withstand the test of time. Like many other entertainers, music is a testimony that their lives existed, even after they’ve exited this realm. For Shurwayne, getting older is a blessing all in itself. “There are people who are afraid of getting older and they do everything they can to fight that. They don’t even understand that that is wisdom upon wisdom and it is a blessing to grow older. It’s only when you’re sick in bed or you have the threat of losing life, that you realize how good life is.”

Crime, a scourge in this country and many other places around the world, Shurwayne highlighted that for many criminals, life means nothing to them, or so it would seem. “Men who living by the gun and gangsters and so, maybe they’re pulling in younger children to do what they want them to do and their lives are being taken away – it doesn’t mean anything to them because they have the idea that life is fickle, but they don’t understand that it is a blessing.”

Now, in the face of a friend’s passing, and the sudden departure of so many people he’s known for many years, Shurwayne Winchester has entered another year of life with even more gratitude than he’d previously expressed. “I was so happy and then I saw this news with Wayne and honestly it pulled me down- a next hard reminder from God that those of us who are still here have so much to be thankful for. We have to appreciate what we have. We have to be happy and content. We think chasing careers and all of that is what life’s about, but it’s so much more,” said the entertainer.

On Wayne’s passing, Shurwayne said, “Wayne did so much to help me. That man did so much for me, nobody will ever understand. To his family, friends and colleagues, I join you in mourning my friend. My deepest condolences to all of his loved ones left behind.”