I can never say goodbye to MJ

It's been a week after the news of Michael Jackson's death, yet I find I'm still not fully processing the enormity of it all. In my mind MJ will always be one of the BEST entertainers possessing rare gifts of exquisite dance moves, ground breaking music videos, and inspiring lyrics. Most of that is incontestable, but what I hope he is forever accredited with is the the way he lead his own look and feel of music and dance. That's what makes him a Great. He wasn't just a talented star, but a visionary who strived for ways to impact the world.

Some ways that I can remember MJ in my life was around Halloween time in junior high (1996) when one of my friends came up with the idea of our entire school re-enacting the Thriller video on our school grounds to air on our school news show. I remember us rehearsing by watching the video over and over....such dedication, but we knew if we did it, we had to do it as much like the video as we could. It was a huge success and pretty cool of our school to allow us to take it over as dead people.

I also remember the summer of 1997 when my friends, Abbey, Amber and I became obsessed with learning all of the words to songs like: Man In the Mirror, They Don't Really Care About Us, and The Way You Make Me Feel. One of our guy friends even hand wrote out the lyrics for us. I wonder if I still have them...

My last memory is of a bright red leather jacket covered in zippers. Oh so hot. One of our relatives mailed it to us because her son (who was a teenager in the late 80's ) had outgrown it. It quickly took on the title of "The Michael Jackson Jacket" amongst our household.

I know that I'm not alone with having such great experiences/memories involving MJ. Please feel free to post any of yours!