George Michael, Carrie Fisher and David Bowie: we remember the icons we lost in 2016.

Carrie Fisher, the actress best known for her role as Princess Leia in the Star Wars trilogies, died Wednesday morning aged 60.

Fisher paved the path of the female heroine. She, with her spiral hair plaits and hard-stare bravery, changed the way women were seen on screen. For a little girl, sitting in a cold cinema when the first Star Wars movie was released nearly 40 years ago, Carrie Fisher represented a whole new world of possibilities for women.

The world mourns her passing. But the grief cuts deeper because 2016 has been a year of loss. It’s been a torrent of bad news and sudden deaths and awful, awful stomach lurches. Enough, already.

On Monday, we lost a music icon. Singer, songwriter, record producer and half of the iconic 80s band WHAM! Sir George Michael died at his home “peacefully”. He was only 53.

This year has been especially bad for music icons. There was Prince, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen.

There were also other actors and actresses. Alan Rickman. Zsa Zsa Gabor. Peter Vaughan.

2016 has been the year of legends gone too soon.

There was Rebecca Wilson, one of Australia’s most high-profile journalists, a wife and mother of two young boys, who lost her battle with breast cancer, a battle most of us didn’t even know she was fighting.

Our beloved TV mothers – Doris Roberts who played Marie in Everybody Loves Raymond and Florence Henderson whom we knew as Carol Brady in iconic TV show The Brady Bunch – also died this year.

It’s been a tough year for so many reasons. Let’s take a moment to remember the celebrities we lost in 2016 and reflect on the incredible lives they led. They’ve all made the world a brighter place, with more laughing and dancing and wonder, just by being in it.

Here’s to Carrie Fisher, George Michael, and the others we lost in 2016.