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NOVEMBER 1, 2025: “The Most IMPERFECTLY Perfect Love Story Of All Times!” …

This picture was taken during Ozzy’s goodbye show. She sat quietly at the edge of the stage. Alone. Almost invisible. After decades of chaos and glory, of screams and silence. Just to be there. To be his. To stay. Always. This is Sharon Osbourne. And that image of her says more about love than any love song ever could. Because real Rock and Roll isn’t in the solos. It’s in the surrender. She met Ozzy when he was lost – broken, addicted, discarded. But she saw the man, not the mess. She believed. She bet everything. And she won.

She wasn’t just a wife. She was the mind behind the empire. The soul behind the myth. She was the one who stayed – through rehab, scandals, relapses, betrayals. She was the one who loved – fiercely, silently, without applause. She turned pain into power. Madness into music. A broken man into a legend – and then into a husband.

For over 40 years, she held the line. Not for glory. Not for image. But for love. Real love doesn’t always roar. Sometimes, it just stays. And she stayed. Sharon was Ozzy’s oxygen. His harbor. And maybe… the greatest love story music has ever known.

(by “AcapellaHero“)

While writing to ask permission to repost these impeccable words about “The Prince Of Dark AND Lightness” here, I was reduced to tears yet again in the wake of a phenomenon I’m calling “The Ozzily EverAFTERglow.” I wrote:

As a widow who’s still healing from a “journey with a madman” who I unfortunately lost to his own darkness, your words have captured SO many of the feelings I’ve yet to fully express with my own words. They NEED to be shared with other widows.

… which is, in fact, exactly what I’m doing to honor what would have been my fifteenth wedding anniversary with the “madman” who took off with my heart after “a little over a decade of chaos, glory, screams, and silence” that, unbeknownst to us, he’d been battling within the abyss of his slowly sinking soul.

No, he may not have been a rock star—but in so many ways, I suppose he was before he lost his actual fucking mind and did unspeakable, unfathomable, and all but inhumane things to us in the wake of his insanity.

But you see, I, too, was Sharon Osbourne in my own way. I happily and sometimes quietly sat at the edge of his stage … often alone … and sometimes even invisible. Why? Just to be there. To be his. To stay. Always. Because real love is in the surrender.

I met Zach when he was lost—broken, discarded. But I saw the man, not the mess, albeit he’d been hiding so much of it. I believed. I bet everything. And I lost.

But then again, did I, though? I was the one who loved—fiercely, silently, and without the “need” for applause (which is not to say I never got it, because I did).

Now? I’ve turned the pain he left me with and the pain from my own journey as a “madwoman” into power. Madness into ALL the music that sings my own soul and continues to help me surrender to my own demons … and myself.

I am a once-broken woman who’s loved many a broken man—and has now turned into a legend.

For over 56 years, I’ve held the line! Not for glory. Not for image. But for love … because real love doesn’t always roar. Sometimes, it just stays. And I’VE STAYED!

I’ve proudly, if bittersweetly, been so many other people’s oxygen—and, even more so, my own. I am a harbor … and maybe … the greatest love story I’ve ever known.

Black-and-white wedding photograph of Cat and Zach kissing in a church aisle.
About The Real Cat Williamson — Warrior, Motivator, Survivor.
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OCTOBER 25, 2025: “One Thousand Apologies” …

Demon Hunter lyric excerpt from One Thousand Apologies about remorse, a broken heart, and lasting regret, over a blurred brown-toned silhouette.

Twenty years ago on this day, Demon Hunter released this most powerful song of not just Zack’s lifetime, but even more so mine as I’ve continued to break everything down in hopes of making sense of the silent pieces of his existence. So, what better time to finally memorialize it than today by sharing my answer to a question that was posted earlier in one of my writing forums:

My “Triptych” story is bittersweet and unfathomable to most, but true nonetheless. Since I’m the “REAL Cat” and an admitted over-sharer, I’ll share. Demon Hunter was the all-time favorite band of my late husband’s life. He’d been thrown away by his “mother THING” on his birth day. Years of burying his emotions after a dismal start in life eventually led him to me and my kids, who he took as his own.

He’d always said that my daughter and I were the only two women he ever loved other than the grandmother who stepped in to raise him after “the THING” left him to rot in his own remains. After YEARS of fighting against the mental illness that had left him slowly deteriorating, he succumbed to the darkness on 8.22.19.

No one except my daughter and me REALLY knows what happened in our home in the midst of his LITERAL insanity in the four months before he left, when the devil himself took up residency inside his head.

Lol, even his beloved German Shepherd “saw it” inside of him, and by “it,” I mean the demon that was living in his body, to which end Walter Williamson LITERALLY tried to rip his hand off the night before the end for what seemed like no obvious reason … until it all became clear to us in the wake of his suicide and “we knew.”

Meanwhile, on 8.9.19, the night after I’d discovered he’d made his final decision to “put the monster down” and purchased the Springfield he used, he’d written an email to my daughter and me with the song “One Thousand Apologies” attached, but never sent it. I found it in his drafts while sifting through the wreckage months later. He’d always said this band wrote the soundtrack to his life, and they did.

For the record, I have long since forgiven him for the crimes against our humanity that he / “the monster” committed against me and my daughter. I’m thankful beyond words for all the delicate and NOT so delicate ways their music has helped me understand what may have been going on inside his broken mind and soul, and for the closure I’ve found in so MANY of their song lyrics. I hope he’s resting in peace.

For the record, “Carry Me Down” was the last song we played for him at his services, and it will be the second-to-last song played at mine. (“The Brighter Side Of Grey” by 5FDP will be the last.)

Someday, I’ll go back through his emails and drop a screenshot of that draft here for truth and accounting purposes, but for now I’m gonna stay safely out of them! I’m growing forward, not backwards, my friends, and some anchors just need to be cut as I continue to rise from his abyss. Here in Dallas, it’s a rainy, dreary, pluviophile HEAVEN for me, and all I intend to do tonight is enjoy my cozy little castle and the sanctity of blissful solitude I’ve found at home with ME. Goodnight. 🖤

Demon Hunter lyric excerpt from One Thousand Apologies about pain, sorrow, shame, and regret, in white text over a blurred brown-toned silhouette.
About The Real Cat Williamson — Warrior, Motivator, Survivor.
Family & Love, Healing & Resilience

DECEMBER 16, 2020: “Once … In A Lifetime” …

Weight machines in front of the large gym window at Life Time, beneath two wall-mounted televisions.

I just walked back into Lifetime and reinstated my membership! Didn’t crumble. Didn’t cry. Didn’t fall apart. It just felt like I was home. It’s totally supposed to be this way. This is such a giant leap. And it was Gia’s final decision—not mine.
“Mom, dad wouldn’t want us working out anywhere else. It would wreck him. Besides, queens don’t work out at 24-hour fitness!”
Chairs and computers at Life Time; Cat recalls sitting here when her first meaningful conversation with Zach began.

I DID IT! I walked back into the very place the best season of our lives began, held my head high, straightened my crown, and took back another piece of my life that I was certain I’d have to forsake as I slowly begin the widow’s process of crossing over.

I even stood before “the window” and didn’t cry. I just remembered. I remembered all of it! I remembered “every day” we got to have him for the most beautiful season of our lives.

And by the way, that chair you see to the left of the computer is the very one I was sitting in when our first meaningful conversation began. You know? The one that started our entire love story with the shot heard round the world:

Catherine? Can I ask you a question? Do you even OWN a hairbrush?

Jean-Claude Van DAMN! I’m smiling ear to ear as I’m literally hearing him say it! You see, it was his sometimes brutal honesty with me that not only brought me to where I am today, but changed the formerly broken narrative I’d had running in my mind courtesy of virtually all the other “men” who’d come before him and never even tried to lead me:

Don’t trust men … they will only ever lie … up to and including GOD!

So, with that, I will now remix the words to Keith Urban’s all-too-fitting “Once in a Lifetime” in a manner that the KING who loved this formerly broken queen back to life would have said them if, as I suspect, he really was watching through his supernova telescope as I fought my way through one of the most powerful moments of my “lifetime” like the heavyweight champion I’ve become:

I can see it in your eyes, and I’ve felt it in your touch. I know that you’re scared, but you’ve never been this loved. It’s a long shot, baby, I know it’s true, but if anyone can make it, I’m betting on the two of you.
Just keep on moving towards the Sun. I know you’re gonna see that the best is yet to come. Don’t fear it now. You’re going all the way. That Sun is shining on a brand new day. It’s a long way down, and it’s a leap of faith, but you’re never giving up, ’cause we had a once in a lifetime love.
Everybody’s looking for what we found. Some wait their whole life and it never comes around. So don’t hold back now. Just let go of all you’ve ever known. You can put your hand in His. Don’t fear it now. You’re going all the way. That Sun is shining on a brand new day.
I closed my eyes and I saw you standing right there, saying I do and they’re throwing the rice in our hair. Well, your first was born, then his sister came along, and they’ve got your smile. I’ve been looking back on the life we had. I’m still by your side.
So don’t fear it now. You’re going all the way! I’ll never let you go. I’ll be right by your side. Just know I’ve made it Home and thanked God for our “once, in a Lifetime” love!

Zach standing by a gym window. Cat Williamson’s Facebook memory, January 11, 2017, Allen: “.... that moment you look up only to see him standing in the same exact spot you ever saw him in the first place almost 10 years ago and it STILL gives your heart a flutter. That’s our ‘Rock’ standing there.” Feeling nostalgic.
About The Real Cat Williamson — Warrior, Motivator, Survivor.