Say what you will about Michael Jackson...

bearing in mind that it is generally considered tacky to speak ill of the dead).

but a few things cannot be debated.
1.His talent in his arena of entertainment was unprecedented.
2. He did a heck of a lot of putting his money where his mouth was.
3.He was arguably the most famous person on the planet. And he tried to use that influence in a unifying way.
4. He wrote and performed a lot of powerful music. A good portion of it had some really noble and beautiful ideas attached to it:
Heal the World, We are the World, Will You Be There, Black & White, Man in the Mirror.....

Coming from South Africa which he took a vested interest in, long before it was the cool thing to do, I feel a special connection to MJ. He was possibly even more beloved there then he was here. There, I think he represented something much more profound then entertainment, although entertained we certainly were.

Like so many others, so many of his songs take me back to specific memories of my childhood and youth. What I most remember was listening to his Dangerous album in the car, driving from Johannesburg to Swaziland and back again, time and time again with my family. We all loved it, we all knew the words. Even in our car, he was transcendent. That cannot be said about many people. This one takes me home, staring out of a dark car window, singing with my family as we traveled over some of the most beautiful country in the world. Listening to this, I remember commenting to my mom that I thought we all connected so much with songs which included choir choruses because we had been part of them in heaven.



He was a genius, a tortured genius no doubt. I think someone with that much creativity and that much pressure placed on them, combined with a complete lack of normalcy throughout their life is entitled to their eccentricities. When you consider all these factors, there was no way he could be normal because nothing about his experience on this planet was normal. I loved what was said by Rev. Al Sharpton to his children today, "there weren't nothing strange about your daddy, what was strange was what he had to deal with".

Now saying MJ wasn't strange is a bit of a stretch but under the circumstances, like all of us, he did his best. And he did a lot of good. I do not believe that he hurt children. He was desperately and yes, somewhat bizarrely trying to have a childhood and his naivete was taken advantage of for money. It's tragic. It makes me truly sad. He was misunderstood and lonely for most of his life and being such a sensitive soul, I'm sure that was extremely painful. I would venture this was why he became so seemingly disconnected from reality as time went on.

Michael like everyone else had flaws, had some major errors in judgment (I'm sure glad my life has not been lived out in front of a camera-I'm quite certain under that sort of pressure the same would be said of me), but ultimately I believe he was a sweet and genuine spirit who truly wanted to make a meaningful and positive contribution to the world. And I believe he did. I sat with my children today and they too were clearly touched by his idealism. Again, he transcended generations. We were all mesmerized by his magic. We all came away inspired, I think. At the very least this makes me want to get up and dance and call me a dork but at least for a moment it really does make me want to make a change.



Thanks for the music, MJ. You done good. You made a difference. I hope you are finally at peace. xo

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