the-os-haven

[the-os-haven]

My Os Story

I'm here because of Wayne. 🧡 I heard that he had passed away and I felt so sad. I was surprised at how sad I felt, as I hadn't listened to the Osmonds in years but I guess he meant a lot to me when I was younger. Let's rewind to 1997...

My friend and I were 14 and into the Beatles and the Monkees. We were not normal. We were obsessive. An Osmonds documentary was shown on TV and of course we fell in love with them. My friend loved Donny.

I always like one of the background ones, not the main one. 14-year-old-me fell in love with 15-year-old Wayne. I used to swoon over the black and white footage or photographs of him on the Andy Williams show. He was so handsome and cute, I was smitten! At the time I didn't really appreciate how he looked as they got older into the 70s. I think they always looked old before their time back then. I think it was the hairstyles!!

My friend and I used to take it in turns to tell each other stories and describe situations where we were interacting with our crushes. It was basically Fan Fiction before we knew what Fan Fiction was, but all very wholesome and sweet. I used to love the stories where my friend would describe Wayne taking me to the fair or the theme park, and Imaginary Wayne was always so lovely.

Anyway, this lasted about a year until my obsession faded and I got into a different band. A much cooler band who were current! 🤣

By the early 2000s another Osmond documentary came on and this time my sister and I watched it over and over. There were so many funny moments we picked up on which became in-jokes, but we both agreed that Wayne was a total sweetheart. He was so, so endearing: getting excited about his tools he had collected and showing them off; watching him play Tetris on his Nintendo 64 (WITH THE SCREEN NAME WONK!! How adorable!!); talking about how he is goofy on stage but really he is sensitive, and that he doesn't care that it's uncool to admit it but he weeps when he misses his wife and children whilst he's on tour! 😭 What a lovely, lovely man.

Maybe another 10 years or so later? The Osmonds came to a venue about an hour away from where I live. We had to go, we were not going to get that opportunity again! I was sad to find that Wayne was not part of that tour, it was Jimmy, Jay and Merrill. Well the evening was pretty uncomfortable actually, it was so cheesy and embarrassing, I'm sorry to say!! But I'm glad we did go because I have the knowledge that we saw them and I also bought a programme so I have that as a keepsake.

And now here we are. I've got back into The Osmonds because of watching some videos after hearing of Wayne's passing. I'm sad that I never got to see him live. And I'm just really sad that he's not here anymore because he was a treasure. Everything I hear about him from his family and the people who met him was that he was a beautiful person. So many of the brothers have said he was the brother they were closest to, or he was their favourite brother! I know that his memorial service is on YouTube but I haven't been able to bring myself to watch it yet. Maybe I will soon.

Because of watching their videos again I am now a really big fan of Jay! And now my six year old daughter is enjoying watching Osmonds videos with me and has even started sticking pictures up on her wall! So that is another gift that Wayne has given me too.

I'm just sending so much love to Wayne and his family. 🧡🧡🧡