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.
Stumble It!
Pop Music Notes 
Well said. He may have been a bit…eccentric, but aren’t all geniuses?
It’s interesting, though. Are they eccentric because they don’t care what the world thinks, or are they eccentric as a side effect of being brilliant?
It was little Paris at the end that got to me. My goodness. I almost cried watching Taylor Swift’s “You Belong with Me” video, which I think it was leftover emotions from the memorial.
Wow…you might want to stay away from Hallmark card stores for a few days. But yeah…absolutely moving.
Great post. I wholeheartedly agree with you. Michael was messed up but there was more to him than the man that dangled babies from balconies.
However, you forgot the major highlight – La Toya’s stunning hat!
I didn’t actually SEE the memorial until last night. Paris loved her some Auntie LaToya, didn’t she? Toy’s clingin’ to those kids tighter than a junkie holds a syringe. Them’s her meal ticket!
I nearly lost it when Paris got up there to speak. Auntie Janet’s encouragement was sweet. She better keep little Paris under her wing, with all the kids’ futures up in the air right now.
Janet looked kinda fierce, didn’t she?