I think I’ve got myself together here. Went to lunch, and put on Sirius to hear the Michael Jackson memorial. Things were good until “Will You Be There”, and then the floodgates opened. First off, to have Jennifer Hudson sing it is brilliant, given what she’s been through in the past year. But when Michael’s spoke outro of the song played, I got choked up.

In our darkest hour
In my deepest despair
Will you still care?
Will you be there?
In my trials
And my tripulations
Through our doubts
And frustrations
In my violence
In my turbulence
Through my fear
And my confessions
In my anguish and my pain
Through my joy and my sorrow
In the promise of another tomorrow
I’ll never let you part
For you are always in my heart.

Gah. How do you top that? Apparently, you bring in Rev. Al Sharpton, a man I have never been a fan of, to really pull it all together. A few quotes sum it all up nicely.

“Michael made us love each other.

Michael taught us to stand with each other.

Michael rose to the top!

Michael never stopped.”

But the most impactful statement of his testimony went straight to Michael’s children:

“Wasn’t nothing strange about your daddy. It was strange what your daddy had to deal with.”

Okay…an overstatement of the facts, because there WAS something strange about Michael. He had unusual quirks, but he also had unusual talent. You have to imagine that the extremes of that will manifest themselves in pretty exaggerated ways. However, no matter how you slice it, Michael was also a father, a son, a brother, an uncle, a human. It is WAY too easy to forget that in all of this. If that boy from Gary can achieve what Michael did, then the sky is the limit for each of us if we want it.