Michael Jackson remembered
Alicia Mayoral, of Santa Maria, Calif., looks down as she stands near the gates of the late Michael Jackson's former residence, Neverland Ranch, in Los Olivos, Calif., Thursday, July 2, 2009.
A public memrial for Michael Jackson will be held Tuesday, July 7, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, according to several sources.
But all over America, communities are honoring the superstar with rememberances of their own.
President Obama even had something to say about Jackson.
“I grew up on his music — still have all his stuff on my iPod,” Obama said in an AP interview Thursday, adding that Jackson “will go down in history as one of our greatest entertainers.
“I think that his brilliance as a performer also was paired with a tragic and, in many ways, sad personal life,” Obama said. “I’m glad to see that he is being remembered primarily for the great joy that he brought to a lot of people through his extraordinary gifts as an entertainer.”
AP–Michael Jackson never visited Pittsburgh’s East Liberty neighborhood. But when a funeral home director there announced a memorial service for him, it was flooded with reservations so quickly that he added a second service.
Across the country, people and towns with no connection to Jackson are holding services in his honor, showing how completely the multifaceted entertainer permeated American culture. Jackson died June 25 at age 50.
“I believe people honestly, psychologically, have a psychological connection to Michael Jackson,” said Roland J. Criswell, president of Coston Funeral Homes.
Some 125 people are expected at Thursday’s Pittsburgh memorial; the same number is expected July 10 to watch Jackson videos and music, a skit and participate in moderated discussions.
Among the other gatherings:
— In Kettering, Ohio, more than 500 people visited the Routsong Funeral Home to sign a book that will be sent to the Jackson family.
— In Dallas, hundreds of people packed the Golden Gate Funeral Home on Sunday for songs and celebration.
— In Richmond, Va., hundreds of people, including the mayor, attended a memorial at a park, singing and dancing along to “Rock With You” and other songs.
— In New Hampshire, the M/S Mount Washington will next week devote one of its dinner-dance theme cruises on Lake Winnipesaukee to Jackson’s music.
“We take these things very personally,” said Salvatore Didato, a retired associate professor at Seton Hall University from Ossining, N.Y.
Fans can feel a special connection to celebrities such as Jackson, and when they die, it’s not unlike losing a family member — even if they never met, said Dr. Bert Hayslip, a psychology professor at the University of North Texas. Their grief is real and profound, he said.
“When they die, a little bit of you dies, and that’s what grief is all about,” he said.
The memorials springing up around the country serve to legitimize fan grief, he said.
“It gives you the kinds of support that you might not otherwise get when you’re grieving someone in particular,” he said.
Rocky Twyman, a volunteer at a soup kitchen at the First Seventh-day Adventist Church in Washington, D.C., helped organize a Jackson tribute Wednesday for homeless people.
“The homeless don’t have the Internet and everything. And they wanted to do something to show how much they cared about Michael Jackson,” he said.
Many of the 50 people who turned out to sing spiritual songs signed a memorial book that Twyman hopes can be presented as part of whatever official memorial takes place.
“What I really wanted to bring out that seems to be lost is all the wonderful things that this man did for humanity,” Twyman said, referring to Jackson’s charitable work, such as his involvement in “Feed the World” to raise money for starving people in Africa.
“He was a very selfless person, really,” Twyman said. “He may have been confused, but to me, he really was a child of God.”
Criswell also said he was not a huge Jackson fan but respected his work on civil rights, his philanthropy and his social contributions.
Helen Fitzgerald, who has written several books on grief and works with the American Hospice Foundation in Washington, said Jackson, with his worldwide fame and life lived in popular culture, reminds many people of their own youth.
“It’s kind of like it’s an end of an era,” she said.
Fitzgerald, 70, also admits she wasn’t really a fan, but was nonetheless intrigued by him, especially his dancing.
“I was just curious how a person could move his body that way,” he said.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
I’m still sad that Michael Jackson has died