Tracey Zipporah Johnson
It’s amazing how one thing, one incident, one situation can change the entire atmosphere. One can never know how a thing can change your life for the better or for the worse. Life can get stagnant; we can operate on autopilot and can tend to forget about what is important. Yes, we easily take things for granted. This week I was reminded of all the important things in my life, what really matters, what is significant and what is trivial. This week changed my life.
I was on family vacation with my Children, Son-in-Law and Grandson laughing it up, just chillin concerning taking time off to be together and then the Memorial of Michael Jackson came on in the middle of our family vacation. Thank God we slept in that day because it was the most moving ceremonial event I have ever experienced. For those two plus hours three generations of the family of which I am the matriarch huddled around at 70 inch screen watching each tribute, listening to each speech, feeling every emotion, reminicising on the music, and empathizing with the family. We laughed and were astonished by some of the things we learned about Michael Jackson that we never knew. We knew that he was an iconic talent that broke the barriers set by the industry; we knew that he was a sensitive individual who almost lived life in reverse not because he wanted to but because he was forced to. The beauty in that is that he dealt the cards that he was given; he lived life on his terms, whether in reverse or not it was still done the way that he wanted, in public and potentially on purpose. We knew that he broke records but we had no idea that he broke the record for the most charitable gift giving. He took everything that happened in his life bad and gave into it – that is a life lesson for us to look at our hard times differently. When he got burned in the head doing that Cola commercial he was in the hospital and built a burn unit onto a hospital. Most people would have introverted even farther into the isolation due to humiliation and Michael may have done that but he also used his power and authority to make a negative situation beautiful in a way that benefited others.
The memorial service gave us several looks into the anomoly that is Michael Jackson. The view from Berry Gordy’s eyes showed a child that was not athletic but enjoyed the game. He accepted what he was best at and took it all the way and beyond. He showed us that in taking risks we could change the world. Had Berry Gordy went with his first mind not to sign another child act after the massive success of Little Stevie Wonder we would not have life lessons this week that we experienced this week. That courage to take risks was all around Michael in the personage of both Joe Jackson and Berry Gordy. They both took risks at the expense of their gut feelings, the nay sayings of those around them and the concern for its success in the future, they went ahead and invested in the risk they were taking. Our life lesson in this is to take risks, calculated or not, take risks. When taking risks commit to that risk. Look at the way that Suzanne DePasse committed to the talent that she stood behind, represented and presented to Berry Gordy. She committed to that investment by working them in their choreography, their costume design, their rehearsals and everything making them the powerhouse perfectionist that they are today.
As the females of my tribe were crying our eyes out, passing the tissue and the fellas were looking at like why are you crying so much? We all felt the love that was emanating from the event. It was a precious moment in time that we as a family took to understand that we mean more to one another than we knew. When the Jackson Family Pastor completed the benediction and had everyone hold hands we didn’t let that moment pass to love each other and pray for the family in mourning. After the televised event was over we wiped our eyes, blew our noses, hugged each other, kissed the baby and recapped what we just saw we made a family promise, one that is going to change our lives and impact generations to come and I thank Michael Jackson, Jackson Family and Friends for bringing me and mine closer together. It was, no, it is so amazing.
b@peace
