Mourning the King of Pop

I'm still very upset about Michael Jackson's passing. I've been on every thread imaginable seeking out closure for this. I have never been so upset about the death of a celebrity, and this unfamiliar territory of adulthood simultaneously frightens me, and leaves me with an emptiness I never knew existed.

Closure is quite the elusive creature. On every thread there are people mourning the loss of a great talent. And there are people saying good riddance to a freak show and pedophile. And then there are people like me that mourn his death twice, and are knotted up inside because we need to mourn to move on, yet we also mourn that he may have victimized children.

It is for these reasons that I cannot seem to get over this, that I'm constantly trying to keep from crying. That I'm trying desperately to keep from snapping at some kind person pointing out that I didn't know him personally so it shouldn't affect me.

But it does.

I'm upset because he was so troubled. I'm upset that he clearly crossed boundaries with children, whether or not he actually molested them. I'm upset that he was verbally and physically abused as a child. I'm upset that he may have engaged in the cycle of abuse himself. And I'm upset that such a worldly infamous icon has succumbed to a tragic death, and at the same time I hope that, if he has victimized children, that they now find solace in his passing. I also hope that he has found peace that he simply did not have in life.

And I hope that the media avoids the victim-blaming once the cause of death is made public (though I don't have much hope in that, since there's already speculation of drug abuse, followed by the, "well he didn't take very good care of himself" crap--oh you think? Too bad we were all too busy finger-pointing and making a spectacle of his freakishness to step in and offer help. This society is plagued with a desire to see the greats fall, to illustrate that they're human too, and in that we are all guilty because we "other" them, ostracize them for their abuses and mental issues, and then are shocked when they tragically die. I'm fucking sick of this. We're all human, but rather than help each other we blame them and cause more damage and say it's all their fault anyway for being addicts or being crazy or being fat or having identity issues or whatever else we can point and laugh at, and then marveling when they're dead).

It simply cannot be ignored that Michael Jackson brought joy to millions of people around the world. He was an entertainer, and he was a great one. His influence in pop music is still evident in the genre. No other artist has compared to his success thus far. And to say that I am anything less than devastated by his death would be an understatement.