Heaven Sent and Heaven Stole....
Its been a few days since it happened. And till now I couldnt grasp it. I didnt want to. Just typing it would break me. It was all very surreal. Still is. Everytime I heard Michael Jackson and the words: dead, funeral, autopsy etc etc, I thought and hoped that this is all just some sick joke that someone's pulled and that MJ will come out with that beautiful smile and contagious laugh telling us that he's alright. He was going to be on the stage again. Make millions of fans shake and weep with joy. He aspired to do 50 concerts! It just showed how dedicated and how in love he was with performing and watching the awe on his fans faces. I would've given anything to see him live. I would give anything now for him to just wake up and say, "I'm fine."
There are stars, there are superstars, and then there is Michael Jackson.
MJ was my first musical love, my first crush. I was 8 when I had a poster of his on my wall. I dont remember what he looked like in it but I would look adoringly at it and tell my mum that I wanted to marry him. That didnt work out of course. Lol.
I've sung his songs in school, found comfort in his music. He's touched all our lives. I mean who hasnt fooled around with a hat and done some dreadful moonwalking, who hasnt shaken their booty to Thriller, or spent hours trying to learn the whole routine? Who hasnt experienced healing through his words. Who hasnt found inspiration from his unrivaled brilliance? What artist will not cite MJ as an influence? I used to watch his concerts/performances on tv, and I can vividly recall the hysteria...Grown men and women crying, fainting....It was pandemonium. The man was messianic! There will never be a performer like him. I mean, who else can grab their crotch and yell "Ow" and have a million fangirls scream and pass out?
When I learnt that Michael Jackson is dead, I was startled, to say the least, because MJ never seemed like the kind of person that could, you know, die. The man seemed invincible. He was so much larger than life, the man was everywhere, that the thought he had a human body, one that needed food and air and sleep, never really occured to me. But then again, I guess that's to be expected. I mean, how can a mere human being really be thought to be capable of creating music, so monstrously amamzing, of brilliance of gigantic proportions?
But aside from his music, I'm going to remember Michael as a human being. Despite the ugly stories, all the controversies, the bizzare behaviour, all of which threatened to overshadow his talent and genius, I never had a doubt that he had a good heart. I loved the man. He was probably the most gifted musical talent the world would ever see and yet was so pained and tortured with it! And I think its fate that genius be accompanied with flaws. The man was wacko, he was eccentric, and a mystery. And like being human, unfortunately he couldn't get his life together despite trying.
"No one understands me. They view it as such strange eccentricities...'Cause I keep kidding around. Like a child, but pardon me... People say I'm not okay 'Cause I love such elementary things...It's been my fate to compensate, for the childhood I've never known..."
He was a lonely man. Most people with that stratospheric level of fame probably usually are. People saw him as the icon, the star, no one saw the person, the man inside. Sometimes I feel maybe he was weary, and really sad, and didnt want to go on. The pressures of being a public figure, the personal issues, the loneliness, all mustve been eating away at him. And if death frees him of all that, then maybe I can finally let it go, and let it sink in that he's gone. :( Cuz as vast his impact was on the world, I sometimes believed he never felt like he belonged. Im sure he is in a better place now. The man has had to see things in his life no one should, yes, he was loved like no one else was, but he suffered, and if he finds peace again in death, if people can let go of the past and ugliness with it, and appreciate the genius MJ was, reflect on his journey, the legacy he left behind, then I can make peace with his departure.
Im trying to find comfort again in his music but I still can't listen to his music and think at the same time that he's dead, it just doesn't work together, he wasn't supposed to be gone so soon!