Nothing confirms a generational culture shift more than the sequential deaths of trailblazers who defined the era waning with time. In the last month alone, the world lost Dolly Parton, then Gloria Steinem, followed by Bob Mackie – three singular figures who, through their disparate visions of female empowerment, redefined femininity from the mid-20th century on. Having had a pivotal encounter with Mackie while covering him for Toronto Star early in my career, which buoyed me for decades, his death hit me the hardest. I feel lucky that I was able to connect with him last year and give him a thank you, 33 years in the making.

Diana, Princess of Wales, died in this time frame 29 years ago. But Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, a new book by Charles Spencer, makes the surreal paroxysms of grief, scandal and conspiracy that came with the car crash that changed the world, immediate all over again. The pursuit of the People’s Princess has yet to cease as the sturm und drang around the circumstances and implications of her death bubbles up with every milestone, every new stone unturned.

It has me thinking of the phrase my friend, the Jamaican-Canadian photographer and artist Nigel Scott – who alas, also died this summer – made his signature: ”The Wave Is Forever.“ We met in the ’80s when he photographed me as a club kid model, and we had a mirroring blend of unlikely interests and experiences – including Toronto’s underground nightlife scene, avant-garde Parisian fashion, a close encounter with Bob Marley, a move to New York, and surfing, which he discovered in Japan and I picked up in Barbados.

Surfing and the ocean informed his uncompromising later work, with the colour blue as a constant muse and meditation, up until he could create no more. I had purchased a painting from his last major show that used all the colour’s hues and aspects, with “The Wave Is Forever” rendered across its surface, which I look at several times a day. Surfers know that waves come sequentially in sequential sets. They rise and fall and form and break and regenerate all over again. Thank you, Nigel, for reminding me that in this life everything passes and everything remains.