Lost amid all the gossip-sexy circumstances surrounding the death of Dr. Donda West is the fact that there really is a death in a family. The mother of Kanye West raised her superstar son as a single mother, but in a situation that was different from the picture typically evoked by the term "single mother." She was a college professor with a doctorate who lead Chicago State University's English Department. She and her husband, a former photojournalist and Black Panther, divorced when Kanye West was a child. The hip-hop artist who grew up didn't rap about being shot nine times. He was the Louis-Vuitton Don. Kanye West and his mother were extremely close. The rapper said so openly, repeatedly and musically. During a performance this weekend in Paris, West reportedly was so overcome when he started the song "Hey, Mama" that all he could do was stand in the middle of the stage and cry. While the rest of us clamor for the next yummy detail involving Donda West's plastic surgeon, Dr. Jan Adams, Kanye West probably never felt as alone as he did standing under that spotlight in Paris, surrounded by thousands who were chanting his name.