Michael Memory

My children and I were in the car one day listening to the local R&B station.  Luther had just gone off the air and Usher followed him.  My husband's daughter was a young teen at the time and the younger kids were teasing her about crushing on Usher.  As we were laughing, the kids asked me who I was crushing on "back then".  Thinking it a slam dunk, I told them to guess.  They wanted to know if it was Luther.  I laughed and realized it might be a little harder for them than I thought.  Well after a while, they gave up and I told them it was Michael Jackson.

*crickets*

They looked at me as if I had two heads.

Took me a minute to realize that their images of Mike were something like this:

They didn't know that no matter what, I would always see him as this:

From that moment on, I made it my mission to make sure that they were educated on Mike the master-entertainer-singer-dancer-genius.  

When news of his death broke, it was my children who gently woke me up from a nap, and told me to watch TV.

I overheard them later tell friends who called, that I wasn't taking any calls and they would relay condolences.

Gotta love them for that.

** FOOTNOTE  
The kids read the post yesterday and reminded me I forgot the best part of the story.  You see, after they looked at me like a two headed monster, they burst out laughing and saying stuff like UGHHH, GROSS, and YUCK.  I told them there was absolutely nothing funny about my love for Mike, and they needed to be quiet because he could've been their daddy!  I was serious.