Gone Too Soon

One of the most powerful artistic and cultural influences to ever grace our world is gone, and I am truly devastated.  I don’t generally cry when people I have no personal relationship with leave this world, but there have been two exceptions and Michael is the second.  Chick Hearn was the first.  Michael Jackson was a bottomless well of talent and he still had more to share, but we will never know what else he would have given.  The enormity of the talent that was Michael Jackson is gone in a heartbeat, the song silenced, the dancefloor eerily still.  With him went a piece of my youth. And an enormous piece of my heart.

I, like so many others, grew up with the Jackson Five.  When Michael went solo, I followed right along like the devoted fan-puppy that I was.  Am.  Nobody before or since has made “feel good” music like Michael Jackson.  Nobody.  It never gets old, it never gets tired. Even 25 or 30 or 40 years after he first gifted us with it, his music remains relevant and years from now it will still reign supreme.  He was the King of Pop.  He was glitter and substance, ethereal and mysterious, a frightened little boy in the body of a larger than life man. His musical talent transcended boundaries previously unidentified the way his grace and physical eloquence defied the natural laws of physics.

It has been difficult to watch his physical transformation over the years, I must be honest.  He was was SO handsome in his natural state, and I’ve often wondered if the evolution was simply an effort overcome the insecurities of a child who was never allowed to feel comfortable in his own skin.  If that was his reality, it would come as no surprise to anyone who’s ever heard him speak about his father, whose nickname for Michael was “Ugly” or “Big Nose”: despicable at best.  Whatever the case, it’s been tough watching an exceptionally beautiful man morph into a frightening and completely unrecognizable version of himself.  I will always wonder, but I will never criticize.  I’ll never in my wildest dreams be able to imagine what a tortured soul he was, and if that’s what brought him some semblance of peace then that’s really all that matters.

I hope people remember him for the love he tried to share.  In so many ways he truly tried to be the change he wanted to see in the world, and he started with the Man in the Mirror.  That song made me take a good hard look at myself, and its message was instrumental in helping me realize that I COULD make a difference, however small, in the world.  I wish his time on this earth had been easier; that people would have tried to understand that despite the enormous talent and the glitter and the “celebrity”, underneath it all he was a human being.  No, he wasn’t like you and me.  Every move he made was documented, photographed, analyzed, scrutinized and speculated about.  That’s what we do to celebrities, and then act like we’re justified in doing it by telling ourselves that “they knew what they were getting into when they chose this career”.  Well, that’s just wrong, number one, and number two, we can’t say that about Michael Jackson.  He was just a kid when he was thrust into the spotlight.  Just a kid who never had a childhood and whose definition of normalcy was anything but.  He didn’t choose that career: he was forced into it.  That he continued on that path was natural: it was all he’d ever known, his talent was genius, and it was lucrative.

This just happened to soon, too suddenly, and I’m having a really REALLY hard time with it.

Michael Jackson, from the bottom of my heart, I thank you for being part of my history.  What you gave to this world while you were here will live forever.  God called you home and only He knows why, and why now, and why when you still had so much to give.  Ours is not to question why, but that won’t stop us from wishing you’d stayed a little longer. And I wish, with all my heart, that you’d been able to see yourself the way I and the other millions of fans saw you: for the genuinely beautiful and peaceful soul that you were and only ever wanted to be.  God bless you, Michael.  God BLESS you.  I will pray that your children find the peace you never knew.  No one should have to endure the emotional atrocities you were subjected to by people who sought to take advantage of your sweet, innocent soul.  You were naive, yes, but you WERE the Man in the Mirror.  Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for that.  And may the vultures who pecked so relentlessly at your flesh slam head on into the Karma train that is coming their way.

God, how you will be missed.  Sing with the angels, Michael.  Sing and dance and rejoice.  You have found the peace you so desperately tried to bring to the world you’ve left behind.  You deserve it.  You are loved, and will be always.  Always.”

I just cannot believe he’s gone.  My heart hurts.  My sadness truly defies description.  It just hurts.  Bad.