The Beauty of Michael Jackson
Where were you when you heard that Michael Jackson died? That will be a question that many of us will ask for years to come. For me, I logged on to get my email and saw the unbelievable headline. Michael Jackson is dead at fifty.
I write this as a tribute from us little people. The fans who admired his work over the years and watched both his physical and artistic transformations. We cheered him through his ups and downs, marriages, and legal woes because beneath all of it remained a truly inspiring, gifted pioneer of modern day pop music.
For me, “Thriller” made me fall into the abyss of his music. Back when videos started, they pretty much consisted of an artist standing and singing, maybe dancing, usually very badly. Suddenly this amazing man and music video took us all by storm. Everywhere you looked people donned Michael Jackson knock off pleather jackets and slicked back their hair. Everyone wanted to be him or marry him. From his initiation of moonwalking to gyrating his hips in a very unconventional way, Michael Jackson made us all sit up and take notice.
So the day after he’s left us forever I drive down the street with my window open, Michael Jackson’s voice blares from cars around me, he sings from the television and the radios and everyone feels the void of his talent. What I find most amazing is that I know practically every one of his songs and I’m sure I’m not the only one. The bulk of his work is astronomical and awe-inspiring and I am certain no one will ever achieve the feats he did. He had an ability to draw the world together with his music alone.” Black and White” showed that we are all equal, “Man in the Mirror,” showed that he wanted to make a change in the world, and he did.
Yet as I listen to the song that he himself said was autobiographical “Childhood” I hear the verses, and for maybe the first time I feel his pain. They are more than touching they are the truth behind the soft-spoken giggling man who seemed to never want to grow up.
“Have you seen my childhood?” “No one understands me, they view that it’s a strange eccentricities because I keep kidding around, like a child that is part of me. People say that I’m not okay because I love such elementary things … for the childhood I’ve never known.”
The most regrettable part of his life was that everyone but him saw his beauty. I will certainly never forget him and will make sure my children know about him, too. I was very small when Elvis died and didn’t get why my mother and even my grandmother were so said about his untimely passing. Sadly now I do. My heart goes out to his family and especially his children.
“Maybe he is a star in the sky shining down upon us all.”
We will miss you, Michael. I’m sure God broke the mold when he made you, because there will never be another Michael Jackson.
