It’s 1:15 a.m. here…I had turned off my computer for the night and was headed to bed. Like most of the country, and the world, I have spent a good part of today watching the news. It’s been a long, sad day.

For reasons I can’t begin to explain, I just had to turn the computer back on and make this post. Maybe because I’m trying to sort through my own feelings and have a small hope that putting my thoughts down ‘on paper’ will help me do that.

Wow, two HUGE icons – icons who have been ‘in’ my life for all of my life – gone in a single day. It’s mind-boggling.

“But Dee, this is a health blog, why on earth are you posting about the deaths of two celebrities?”, you may be asking. Well, yeah, it’s a health blog – but more than that, it’s a life blog.

Music has always been a HUGE part of my life, and of my kids’ lives. I could tell my life story in songs, believe me. On Thanksgiving the kids and I have a tradition of blasting music while we cook and bake – stopping at regular intervals to shoot our own ‘music videos’. It’s a tradition we all cherish and one we all look forward to.

When on a road trip (even if it’s just to the grocery store) we play our own version of “Name That Tune”. I’m quite sure I have some of the only kids who can quickly name the artists behind obscure 70s and 80s tunes as quickly as they recognize Avril Lavign, Miley Cyrus or Nickelback.

About 5 years ago I ordered 3 Michael Jackson videos from Amazon, for no other reason than I wanted the kids to experience just a taste of what I remembered experiencing while watching MTV several decades ago.

When I got them we all gathered around the TV – a couple of the kids grumbling that I was going to make them watch a guy sing who was currently the butt of several jokes going around at school. Before I hit play, I explained the phenomenon that was Michael Jackson. I told them how before his Thriller album, most music videos were pretty boring – concert shots or a guy sitting on a stool holding a mic.

I told them about how the debut of Thriller was a major American event – EVERYONE watched that video – at least everyone my age did. How he took music videos to a whole new level – raised the bar for popular artists and changed the face of music forever. How his choreography and dance moves were the forerunners of the stars they loved today – the cool guys with the cool moves – most have shades of Michael.

I got a couple of eye rolls…and a “c’mon mom, let’s just watch it”. So, we did. By the end of the Thriller DVD all of the kids were impressed and enthralled. It took several “yes he did!”s before they finally believed it was Michael who invented the ‘moon walk’. Even my kids had tried that move – but had had no idea where it came from. I heard more than one “wow, he can move!” and “how does he DO that?!” and when the DVD was done, not a single child complained when I put in “Man in the Mirror”.

Why was it so important to me to share this slice of my history with my kids? I’m not sure I can answer that – except to say that genius and talent don’t have the boundaries of time nor age. Regardless of Michael’s legal, financial, family or other problems (about which I’m not even going to comment), this one man changed our lives by changing our music, our perceptions, our expectations and our awareness. He’s a part of history no less important, in my opinion, than the political figures we teach our children about in school.

I listened to many of his songs today – some for nostalgia, some just to recapture the magic I felt at ages 17 and 18 watching him on MTV and some to remind myself of the little prods he brought to our consciousness to become better people and world neighbors. Think I’m being lofty? Take a listen to the words of some of his more popular songs before you decide… Man in the Mirror, We Are the World, Heal the World, Black or White.

And Farrah. Man, I remember standing in front of the bathroom mirror for hours trying to get my hair to flip like hers! (it never worked lol) The ‘first angel’ – the poster girl that every boy wanted and every girl wanted to be. The burning bed – a movie I saw only once but will NEVER forget. And then her courageous and very public battle with a deadly disease. The woman had class. She was a beauty, to be sure – but she had strength, courage and class – and those only served to make her light shine all the brighter. The world is just a little bit less without her in it.

I am so sad today – there’s a hole inside that wasn’t there yesterday. Isn’t it odd? People we’ve never met, never spent time with – and when they leave our world we feel the loss as deeply as if we’d known them for years. There’s the crux of it – we have known them for years even if they never knew we existed. For some of us, they’ve been part of our lives for the entirety of our lives.

Whether it’s logical or not, I’ve felt the losses today deeply. I’m sending love and prayers to the children who’ve lost their parent, the siblings who’ve lost their brother or sister and the parents who’ve lost a child. And I give thanx for the light and the song they brought into our lives. I’ve never known a world without Michael Jackson or Farrah Fawcett. Now, I do, and it’s a sadder place. It’s also a better place for them having been here.

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