Michael Jackson, his memorial service and on Living Forever

Did Michael Jackson really die? I attended his memorial service in Los Angeles in July 2009. I saw his casket but was he really in it? Over 16,000 people attended the service at the Staples Center and over 31 million watched it on TV  and many more online. It was very well organised considering it was at such short notice.  There was a great deal of security; police on horses, police barriers and a large contingent of media from all over the world.

Michael Jackson Memorial Service

For many years now, a great deal has circulated in the press and media regarding his sexuality and his eccentric behaviour. It appears that in death, his originality and music seems to be now more acknowledged. Why does there seem to be less criticism when someone dies? Do the dead hear more then the living?The rumours still fly around. There is still a question over the whereabouts of his body. People at the memorial would shout ‘I love you Michael’ as though he was there to hear them. One of the people seated next to me said she was  expecting him to jump out of his casket and do a moon-walk. Celebrities do not seem to die, they live forever.

People from around the world came to Los Angeles. Ordinary people who had grown up with the music of Michael Jackson. Many wrote on the Wall Memorial outside Memorial Service at the Staples center.

Michael Jackson Wall Memorial

Celebrities – that is a strange word isn’t it? It appears to be for famous people. They have ‘A’ lists. ‘B’ Lists. Are there ‘C’ lists? Then it seems to jump to ‘Z’ lists. Who decides who is on what list? Is it another ‘A’ list person or someone quite insignificant in the cutting room floor of an movie editing chop shop? Is it based on annual income? Popularity – how is that measured? Is that measured by Google hits? Michael Jackson seems to be a celebrity. Yet celebrities are not necessarily celebrated. They also appear to be vilified, shunned, and criticised. Pick up any gossip magazine and there seems an emphasis on catching the cellulite, bad taste in clothes or partners (according to the writers) of the articles. Bad news and bad smells seem to sell. Who wants to buy good news?

Barack Obama said Michael Jackson had’ lived a tragic life’. He did. He seemed to be searching for something but never found it. He seemed to find it in objects to fill his home. Large art objects rather then people. All of us have to age but Michael Jackson did not have to age. Michael Jackson was 50 when he died. A 50 year old man. Someone who had lived for half a century. You would never have known it. 50 – he was practically an older man. He was a man and not a boy. Why was there such an interest in his death? What were the reasons you or I were interested in his death? Or not interested? Was it his life or his death? The many people I talked to were shocked that he could die. It seems like celebrities live forever. As long as they are on print they seem to live. Their ‘celebrityness’ seems to guarantee immortality. What about the rest of us? The non-celebrity. Those who live as people. We seem to be guaranteed to die. How many will attend our funeral? How many will remember us? How would you like to be remembered? What has been important for you in your life? Will who has been important to you be coming to your funeral and also be celebrating your life and mourning your death? Most of us do not live forever and will have a limited time to apportion our lives. Our time keeps ticking by and our use-by date rapidly approaches.

We will not know for awhile how Michael Jackson will really be remembered. Things will come out at the trial and more will be revealed with time. We have just found out that his children he claimed were biologically fathered by him are not his own. In time more will come out. Probably more then I would want to find out.

Whatever we do or have had done to us in the past will surface. It is very rare and hard to hide matters. Any secrets, any thing we may do or say will come out in the future no matter how hard we may try to hide it. Matters we were not aware of will surface. In the past it was often thought children do not matter, ‘it does not matter what you do to them because they will forget it’. or that ‘children do not remember things’.  The reality is that if a child is  very young they will remember the feelings and maybe even the images. If they are older they will be able to remember and associate the words to the events. There is always a memory somewhere and these do come out eventually through our thoughts, words and actions.  It is truly the wise who know and are aware of themselves at the highest level.

© 2009 Y