When I was a little kid, there was nothing more I wanted to be in life than a back-up dancer for Michael Jackson–a dream I’m sure I shared with millions around the world. Those days, I spent a lot of time glued to the television relentlessly waiting for his videos to come on so that I could hit the record button on the VHS player. I cleared space in the living room, played them back, and devoted countless hours to studying every move, and rehearsing them each to perfection. As I type this, I can still recall those memories when my siblings and I gathered in our living room to put on our own “Talent Shows” for mom and dad. We’d make fliers and put them up around the house announcing our latest show, we handmade tickets with strips of paper and crayon and assigned “seats”(couch space). We’d put on plays, reenact movie scenes, comedy skits, and of course, I always had a dance number, which was usually a mirror of Michael’s latest video, sometimes I’d switch off and do something by Madonna or Elvis (My dad’s childhood nickname for me was Madonna), but I was at my happiest when I was showing off my moonwalk or mimicing the fight scene from “Beat It” with my little sister.

I held onto my dream of being a dancer, but it was hard to hold when I was15 and had knee surgery after injuring it. I can still dance, but it’s never been the same–there are certain movements I just can’t make without feeling like my knee is going to tear apart. But, to this day, no matter where I am, whenever an MJ song comes on, you can guarantee I’m up and dancing because for the time that his music is playing, I’m a kid again holding on to my big dream, hoping that someday the pain will go away and I will regain some of the mobility I lost and dance behind Michael.

With Michael’s passing, I mourn more than the death of an Icon who brought the world together through its universal language–I mourn the death of my biggest childhood dream. His death hit me hard when I heard his young voice through my radio singing, “I’ll be there.” I wasn’t alive during the Jackson 5’s heyday, but I can imagine anyone who heard that voice for the first time instantly knew that he possesed a talent unlike anybody else. I hope that in the coming days people will be kind and just let the man rest in peace and take comfort in his musical legacy–the music that houses such fond childhood memories, the music that still continues to bridge the gap between generations and bring the world together.

As Jody Rosen from Slate writes:

Today, the popular-music landscape has crumbled into bits and bytes, splintered into hundreds of market niches, subgenres, and microgenres. Though the occasional huge hit collapses the distance between audiences, we will never again experience a moment like Jackson’s 1980s apotheosis, when Thrillerseemed to shrink the world. Weeping for Michael, we are also mourning the musical monoculture—the passing of a time when we could imagine that the whole country, the whole planet, was listening to the same song.

Thank you, Michael–for being a constant source of inspiration, for making my soul dance, for sharing your gift with me and the world. Thank You.

“Never Can Say Goodbye” – The Jackson 5

I also can’t go without mentioning Los Angeles music hero, Sky Saxon of the Seeds and the woman who’s death undoubtedly shattered a million school boy dreams, Farrah Fawcett. Both died the same day as Michael Jackson.

“Can’t Seem to Make You Mine” – The Seeds (One of my absolute favorite tunes of all time–gonna pull out the vinyl and spin it tomorrow)

Time is an intangible distance. When someone you love dies, all that separates you from them is time. Unlike the miles, state lines, or oceans that once divided you while they were alive, time has no retrograde. You can never physically return to a place in time. Even with the strongest of memory, details dissipate. Was his shirt blue? Was he wearing his glasses? Was that freckle on his right or left cheek?

I don’t remember.

All that remains intact are two fragments of time. I open up the door as I walk into the house, he’s sitting at his favorite spot on the creme colored couch with a newspaper by his side. But I don’t see him anymore, even in this memory all that’s left of him is a shadowy figure. I still hear his voice though and I know he’s smiling as he gets up to greet me “Ashee Mawee.” I’m 8, maybe 9 years old. I hug him tight as he asks if I want to watch cartoons. I joyfully decline and say he can watch the game while I do my homework. I’m distracted as I can’t keep my eye off the game. The game ends. There’s something on the news about Selena being shot. My eyes get watery andhe tells me it’s going to be okay as he dances with me to “Bidi bidi bom bom.”

I’m 19 as we sit on the green bench in grandma’s garden as he counsels me on matters of the heart. It’s the last meaningful conversation I can recall having with him. It’s the last thing I remember about him. Despite the fact that he only lived a mile away from me, I didn’t visit much in his final year. I didn’t want to remember him in the shape he was in. So thin and pale hooked up to oxygen–at times unrecognizable. I knew he was dying and my first instinct was to run away because I refused to watch him die.

Only now can I see how truly selfish my actions were. I wasn’t there when he needed me most. To make him laugh like I did when I was a kid, or to read him the paper as he had done for me when I couldn’t. To tell him it was all going to be okay and hug him as he had done for me.

April 26th, 2009. Three years now seperate us. This morning before I left I reminded my mom, “Today is the anniversary of Grandpa’s death.”
She replied, “That’s right and I bet no one has gone to the cemetery.”
She was surprised to hear that I had already gone.

I visited that tiny spot in Rose Hills on Aprill 22nd in honor of what would’ve been his birthday. And as I stood there, flowers in hand, over that plaque on the ground recalling that moment when they began throwing the dirt over his casket, my eyes welled up with tears as I whispered, “I never even knew what kind of flowers you liked or if you even liked flowers.”

If time can teach me anything it’s to get to know the people in my world to the fullest I can.  I love spending time listening to my grandma tell me stories about her growing up or how her and grandpa met. I just wish I would’ve been able to hear grandpa tell me about those things, too. About how beautiful abuelita looked on their wedding day or how he felt when he found out he was going to be a dad for the first time. So many questions.

…and thank you for the laughs.