Missing Michael

I don't know about anyone else here, but I'm still kind of in disbelief that Michael Jackson is dead. I feel very alone in my grief, and it's been my experience that to share it with others helps a lot. I'm sure there must be some one out there who feels as badly as I do-- a little like I did on September 12, 2001-- walking around in shock like the walking wounded on a battlefield. So here's my attempt at articulating my (all too short) experience with MJJ.

Born right at the height of his popularity, I grew up listening to the "Bad" album. My mother used to sing "Smooth Criminal" to me when I was little because "Annie are you okay?" sounds like "Amy are you okay?" and she calls me Amy. I remember dancing to the Bad album with my best friend at the time, us calling ourselves Michael and Janet Jackson...my best friend was a boy, so this wasn't strange:)

A few years later I moved with my family from New Jersey to Michigan, and really didn't think about Michael very much for several years. In the early '90s we got "re-aquainted" when he released "You Are Not Alone." I was an extremely angst-ridden adolescent, and this song meant the world to me, as I often felt very, very alone.

During those years I read a biography of Michael Jackson that really exposed--even more so than his music--the amazing person this world would lose in 2009. He was such an unbelievable talent, and his heart was so big it baffles me.

He was tragic and beautiful, so tortured, so broken-- my heart could not help but go out to him. He was much deeper, much more sensitive, much more passionate than anything I could ever describe. My heart couldn't help but go out to him and wish him happiness.

I used to listen to his Dangerous album--new at that time--and I was so moved by his music I can hardly find the words. Michael loved everyone. As taboo as it is now to believe in him, I whole-heartedly endorse his aquittal of any wrong done to the kid whose family brought him to court.

I truly believe that once in a great while, there are people who live on a seperate plane-- like Vincent Van Gogh-- artists who are so tortured by the rigormorale and daily strain that they must live in their own world, lest they be destoryed inside by our own. Incidentally, Van Gogh is my favorite painter for this very reason; he was too fragile, too beautiful to live very long on this savage Earth. These men inspired me and made me miserable, broke my heart and touched my soul...it all sounds so trite, so corny I wish there was another way to say it, but I think sometimes the same words used over and over are appropriate--especially in remembrance.

This weekend I was numb to everything, even while visiting family and deciding where to move-- it's become an all-too-familiar feeling. My father died a year and a half ago, and a few years before that Johnny Cash, the musician I had always associated with my father. Though I knew Johnny was in bad shape toward the end of his life and I knew his heart was broken without June, I somehow always thought he would be alive. I never imagined living in a world without a living Johnny Cash. When he died, it was like my own father did. I cried and mourned his loss almost as much as Dad.

Michael Jackson was very similar. Though of course he bore no resemb;ence at all to my strong, wonderful father or the sweet-faced Johnny Cash, Michael had the same brilliance and kindness that those other two men in my life had. And I never imagined I would outlive him either. When it happened it was like some one had torn away a piece of my identity.

Michael sang "hold you" the same way I say "hold you" when cooing with babies or pets: he dropped the "l" so it sounded like "hoed" you. "Hoed me like the River Jordan..."

As a writer I'm feeling very lost, given the recent epidemic that seems to have stricken our entertainers. Farah Fawcett and Michael died on the same day, Billy Mays a day or two later, Ed McMahan...it's unbelievable who we've lost in such a short time. As a result of such sudden loss, my heart feels hollow. When some of the brightest stars suddenly fall, how do we light up the sky?

Forgive this rambling blog; I just needed to bleed out some of this putrid sorrow and try to feel whole again.