One Direction was their childhood. Now, fans are grieving their youth

For many Directioners, Liam Payne’s death also means mourning their younger selves.

Mikaela Dee spent much of her childhood in a hospital bed. Dee was chronically ill, in and out of the hospital so much that her family elected to homeschool her. Her friends were distant; most of her interactions were with doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and her parents. When she was 15, though, she found One Direction on “The X-Factor UK” – five floppy-haired, skinny teenage boys around her age, singing together on her screen. Looking back now, the members of One Direction seemed funny and kind, Dee said; their zest for life inspired her. She made a fan account for the band on Instagram, and became friends with fellow fans across the country, even traveling to meet them in person. Suddenly, thanks to the band, she didn’t feel quite so alone. Having gone on indefinite hiatus in 2016, the members of One Direction haven’t performed together in nearly a decade and their millions of young admirers have since grown up. But when Dee, now 29, found out that Liam Payne had died last week in a fall from a hotel balcony in Argentina, she suddenly “felt the walls close in.” “(Payne was) a light in my life when I needed it most,” she said. The group’s grounding center in their early years, Payne’s unexpected death at 31 has left many who grew up with the boy band shaken.