The King of Pop was dead.
Like the death of Elvis, the assassination of John F Kennedy or the events on 9/11, the moment in time when the learned that the crazy life of Michael Jackson had ended will forever be stuck on pause.
I was on the far west end of Galveston Island taking a break from a long day in H
ouston when my wife texted me the news. Having grown up listen to his Thriller album on cassette tape about 1 million times, I had a strange intertwined feeling of sadness and expectancy.The kid from the famed “Jackson Five” thrown into stardom before most are allowed to be left alone at home, Michael Jackson never knew life the way the rest of the world does.
He could sing. He could dance. He set records. He invented style. He was incredible.
Yet, he was alone and troubled the entire time.
From allegations of child molestations, financial troubles in the millions, to drug use that riddled his body with needle holes and finally ended his life, the man who seemed to have it all, had nothing.
His was really not a life that should have been celebrated. Millions watched his funeral like he was Christ himself. People cried and nearly christened him with perfection. Celebrities stumbled over themselves trying to grab the spotlight. Even in death Michael Jackson created hysteria.
Instead the world should have paused to think. If a man-child like him could have had so much but have so little it’s pretty clear what his story reveals.
We all need God.
Like many others since his death I have spent some time updating my Itunes with many of Jackson’s hits. It’s just next time I hear his songs, I will think about what his life could have really meant and how sad it is that he is gone.
“Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 2:11
© 2009, J. Brady
”I say it how I see it and I make no bones about it."
