Remembering a Life

I'm not watching the Michael Jackson Memorial for a few reasons. As much as I appreciated the life's work of Jackson with his brothers and alone, I didn't embrace it enough to do more than what I did already. Gosh, I said, Michael Jackson's dead. That's too bad.

I was surprised, but not shocked.

Another reason is because I'm not big on funerals to begin with. I believe in letting the dead lie in peace. The ability to meet your maker in your own way or lie in everlasting slumber is the destiny of us all. There is nothing special in dying. Memorials are not for the dead, they are for the living.

For entertainers, like Jackson, who we as fans and the people who made their living off his talent, a memorial service is our one last opportunity to suck off his gift.

The entertainers who will now crowd the stage to proclaim to the world, "Look at me, I knew him. Let me tell you how I was special to him." As they crowd the stage at the forum to proclaim their love and respect, and to tell us all how he was a good person, a good son, a good brother, a good father and a great entertainer and, probably, a good god fearing man, the real question to me is where were they when he was crying out for help?

Where were his parents when he needed the love and nurturing that any child needs?

Where were the relatives and neighbors when the parental abuse to he and his siblings was not just a rumor but an outright overt practice?

Where were his handlers when they demanded that he do more, more and then much more to satisfy their personal greed for the money and the success built on his talent and sweat?

Where were his doctors who prescribed the drugs that made him an addict, the doctors who kept quiet when they discovered the abuse, and his siblings who allowed the abuse?

Where were the clerics, who appeared at his death, who should have practiced their calling when he was alive? "In reply Jesus said to them: “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but those who are ailing do." (Luke, 5:31-32) And if the spiritual advisers say they could have saved him, then why didn't they?

Where were the friends who silently talked about his behavior behind his back while publicly praising his genius? Where were the sycophants who kept telling him how much he was loved to keep their gravy train on the tracks? Where were the bankers who kept loaning him money knowing they were sucking his assets away? Where were the authorities who allowed him to keep his children in a false reality and watched him dangle them as playthings. He may have loved them, but his death now puts them in the caretaker that made him the way he was.

And where were the fans that clamored for more and more, demanding to be entertained either by his talent or by his eccentricities?

Yeah, I know, I sound like a grumpy cynic. It's just that I hate when people gather around a man, who died a long time ago in spirit, to proclaim their love for him now after the body finally gave up. If only they had worked so hard to bring him peace.

From the guy who wrote about every human emotion better than anyone, Bill Shakespeare,

"Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince;
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."

The rest is all unnecessary.