The rogue waves of shock the world experienced about Michael Jackson’s death is just now beginning to subside. And much like the destruction left behind via the oceanic kind of storm, so many of us are still wondering what the Hell just hit us.
For a while I thought I was losing my mind. And not because of the loss of him, but because of my irrational reaction to it. It was just a few months ago, while clearing out the clutter in a back room, I ran across my old Thriller CD. Without giving it a second thought I tossed it in the garage sale bin. An act not befitting of a beloved fan. This casting aside wasn’t because I didn’t appreciate his music or the genius of this boy wonder. It was because I didn’t realize just what a genius he was until he was no longer in “the flesh.” I can’t discount the fact I’m just a few years older than MJ; with music tastes, at the time, leaning toward country (to be replaced soon thereafter with New Age). Or maybe it was because I was never a typical concert groupie. I remind myself the electronic age hadn’t yet come unto its own during the reign of our Pop King. Thus the true experience of MJ had to be seen—in person. Still, I suspect, the real culprit to my moving on was how hard it was for me to relate to him. The strangeness of this celebrity just didn’t fit into any cognitive form my baby boomer brain could muster. I was never convinced he was guilty of the wretched charges thrown at him during the media circus of his 2005 trial. I simply saw it as another form of TV entertainment.
Indifference on steroids.
Fast forward to June 25, 2009. In the days following his death, while soaking in every sordid detail via mainstream media and beyond, I found myself—this otherwise conservative, rational middle-aged woman—looking for secret places I could retreat to for a good cry. And get this: I flat-out don’t cry. Not at girl-ish movies, even rarely at a funeral. So here I was, crying about the loss of Michael Joseph Jackson, on and off for more than a month. Wondering with each and every grief-stricken moment what on earth was happening to me. Was it a re-entry of hormonal menopause, come back to evoke havoc? Or had his death meant a part of my own youth-a more vibrant era of accepted immaturity and adventure-was now gone forever, never to eek its way back to me? Then, again, there’s always work-related stress, albeit ongoing. For the death of this total stranger, a mega celebrity, no less, to usurp my life so uncharacteristically sent me on a mission to either figure him or me out once and for all. So here’s what I’ve discovered (or should I say uncovered?’
That I’m not alone.
In fact, far from it. I’ve scoured numerous Michael Jackson forums, music, and entertainment blogs, Twittering away. I wasn’t looking for the longtime, faithful servant-fans of MJ but I mean the “git-a-rope,” “just get over it already” crowd of grown-ups who have collectively been scratching their heads while wallowing in the same loss and grief.
Lila Ramkey, a Charleston, W.V. woman wrote: “If someone had told me one year ago that I would have reacted this way to Michael’s death, I would have declared them crazy. I’ve never followed celebrity this closely in my life. I’m a realistic, pragmatic type for the most part and really haven’t understood in the past how people could get so caught up in celebrity.”
Yet, she, like I, can’t seem to “get enough.” Ironically, akin to MJ’s pensive comments just seconds before the music starts in “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” it’s a force … a force moving us both, to where, exactly, we’re not sure. But it’s a strange journey we want to take.
