Michael and me

I cried like a baby when I learned Michael Jackson was dead.

I was already teary-eyed when I heard the news. I had just posted this about my father-in-law's illness. I was missing my mother-in-law like crazy, lamenting a blow-up with Graham during which I lost my temper and terrified about how Rob was going to cope with the seemingly never-ending stress.

I had, in fact, taken to wondering when exactly being a grown-up started being so hard - so goddamned hard - when I heard that Peter Pan was dead.

"Have you seen my Childhood?
I'm searching for that wonder in my youth
Like pirates in adventurous dreams,
Of conquest and kings on the throne..."

I worshipped - worshipped! - Michael Jackson during my formative years. I was 13 when Thriller was released and he swiftly became the object of my every puberty-obsessed dream and desire.

I memorized every dance move in Thriller. I fell out with my best friend and cousin over a crush we shared on a boy who styled himself as a Michael Jackson look-alike. (He preferred her.) My first boyfriend in the ninth grade brought me home a Michael Jackson calender from a family vacation and grudgingly sat for hours while another girlfriend and I stylized his face, hair and clothing in an attempt to Michael Jackson-ize him.

I loved Michael Jackson and his music just as passionately when I grew older. I was in my early 20s and driving Canada cross-country when I made an hour-long detour in rural Saskatchewan on a wintry afternoon in order to find a bar where I could watch the North American premier for the Black or White video on the big screen.

I do not know whether Michael was guilty or innocent of the spurious child abuse charges that were ultimately his undoing: nobody does. I suspect he was innocent. I know that he was a victim of abuse and exploitation in his own childhood and later in his adult years when his money and fame seemed a barrier to treatment for what was clearly a heartbreaking descent into mental illness.

I never knew Michael Jackson, personally - obviously - but I feel I understand somewhat the lure that precipitated that descent. I understand - God, do I understand - the desire to keep the responsibilities and the pain of adulthood at bay. I understand the appeal of spending millions of dollars, of going to fantastical lengths, to try and recapture the halcyon days of childhood when laughter and happiness and the world itself was light and simple and gloriously uncomplicated.

I met Rob at the door on the day Michael Jackson died.

Graham had long since screamed himself to sleep and Rob had been out walking in the rain trying to clear his head and rid his stomach of the gnawing pain that plagues him on and off and had returned with a vengeance at the news of his father's illness.

"Michael Jackson is dead," I sobbed, as he took me in his arms. "I can't stop crying. It's like my whole childhood just, just died."

I was crying for the man who never had a childhood of his own, but whose life and music made mine a million times better.

I was crying for the man who never wanted to grow up, and for myself, the girl who couldn't wait to leave childhood behind.

Because he was right and I was wrong and now he was dead and I would give anything to go back to those days when perfecting the moonwalk on my parents' linoleum floor was clearly the simplest way to ensure future success and happiness.

"Have you seen my Childhood?
I'm searching for that wonder in my youth
Like fantastical stories to share
The dreams I would dare, watch me fly..."

Rest in peace Michael.