The popular entertainer—who has just released a new album-- told how his never-to-be-forgotten love affair with Feleppa opened him up "completely," allowing him to experience self-trust, tuning him in to his own intuition. He discovered, he said, that he didn't have to fear being hurt by life since he'd found, through Feleppa, how it is possible each day to open up to life "just a little bit more."

Michael feels that he's grown considerably since the death of both his mother, nine months ago, and of Feleppa in 1993.

"And I am so grateful for that," he told reporters. Older, his new album, is said to be full of reflections about the encompassing love he's known, including Michael's pain at losing his great friend to death. The album is dedicated to his dead lover.

He says it would have been ludicrous not to dedicate it to him because the album is so clearly about him.

Feleppa, he explains, loved life in a way that Michael's reserved British countrymen usually find nigh incomprehensible. "We just can't grasp it in this country," he said of England. Michael was referring to how his country's too "proper" culture, with its Victorian hand-me-downs, had stymied his personal growth. "He made me realize how English I was," he said.

Nor was it necessary, according to Michael, for him to be constantly at the side of his friend. While learning to experience new dimensions in life, he found that Feleppa didn't always have to be with him. "He was somebody who was there to show me," he said, "Heaven Sent and Heaven Stole."

Anselmo Feleppa was a dress designer. After meeting Michael the two went scuba-diving and hand gliding. Michael tells how he jumped off Sugar Loaf Mountain, how he learned to enjoy traveling more, and how he'd discovered feeling, the "tactile", the touching of friends freely and lovingly.

"I hate the fact that I lost Anselmo," Michael told London's Daily Mirror, but I am still incredibly lucky to have had him in my life."

There is now no bitterness in Michael though since he has begun making basic changes in his own life, he fears his past work has tagged him as somewhat morose. Now, apparently, his music will reflect something of the joy and satisfaction he's known after emerging from the excruciating pain that was associated with his loss.

Music critics often note how Michael's music is pointedly autobiographical. "Going through a lot of pain, personal pain, makes you realize a lot of things," says the star. Friends note that his emergence from hurt, following Feleppa's passing, finds him filled with a new pride and gratitude.

George Michael's celebration over having known and befriended another loving human being carries lessons for others who have faced the death of a loved one. He doesn't believe that love ever subsides in the face of death. "If you have loved, then the love you felt never goes away," he says, "It is with you forever."