Michael Jackson

It's been a couple days now, but I'm still shocked about Michael Jackson's death.
We've all seen the pictures of him over the past few years looking pretty fragile, but even knowing he's been dealing with health issues for a long time, I just didn't expect this to happen.
In my head I assumed he would continue to age in a progressively strange-looking fashion and probably live a low-key life from here-on in.
I've been moved by the reactions from people around the world. I was even surprised by my husband's reaction. I didn't think it would phase him at all, but when I first broke the news (I woke him up by my yelping from the other room), he pretended to go back to sleep, but in his head he was thinking of what he could possibly write on his Facebook update for such a momentous occasion. He wanted to choose his words very carefully to express his shock and sadness. Aww.
When the news sunk in we did the usual: Call people. "Did you hear?" Etc. etc.
That night we met up with friends for what I dubbed the "Michael Jackson memorial dinner" and discussed Michael's life over wings.

Ever since then I've spent way too much time reading articles about him and wondering how various talk show hosts would address the issue. From all my reading I realized that in recent years, Michael's life had become one of addictions and vultures. I feel bad for him - he knew he had too many health issues to do those concerts, but he was pushed into it. He had too many people around him that wanted to use him for their own financial gain, and not enough people with common decency.
My hope now is that his children won't be scarred for life by this tragedy, and they will growing up thinking of the good contributions their father made to the world, (and not dwell on the controversial bits).
I also realized that I've spent way too much time pondering this sad subject.
It's time to start reading regular good old-fashioned books again.

On a side note, since I never had the chance to take a picture of the man myself, the photo above is of a talented impersonator I saw in Mexico.

Michael, I have no idea what kind of afterlife awaits you, but I say this sincerely: Rest in peace.