Mourning Michael

The last couple of weeks have been very emotional for 3 of my 'boys' with Michael Jackson passing away. Aaron grew up loving MJ as a teenager and especially loved his music during the 1980s. Over the last 10 or 15 years he has commented that the Michael Jackson we know now, isn't the one he loved growing up, but he (and I) still appreciated his talent and how much he was a genius in the music industry.

Jay and Harri didn't know much at all about Michael Jackson until about 6 months ago when Australian Idol was on. One night they had a Michael Jackson theme night and Wes Carr sang 'Black and White' and did the moonwalk. Jay thought it was fantastic and we pulled out some old DVDs and told him that if he thought that was good, then he should check out Michael Jackson's DVD clips. Since then Jay and Harri has been totally obsessed with Michael Jackson. They watched his DVDs over and over again, and listened to his CDs at night when they went to bed. They even wanted to buy hats to look like Michael Jackson and started putting on concerts for us!

Kobe is obviously wanting to follow in his big brother's footsteps and also puts on the boys hats whenever they leave them laying around.

Jalen's favourite MJ song is 'Smooth Criminal', and Harri loves 'Billie Jean' or 'Billy Jeans' as he calls it! They even wanted to get a white glove so they could be even more like MJ. Grandma has promised to sew sequins on it for them.

Last week the Young Women from church came around for their mutual night to read books to the boys. After reading a few books, the boys decided to put on a concert for them.

Danika knew a few 'Thriller' moves of her own!

When the boys found out that he passed away they were all very upset. Jalen said he had a little tear as he was walking to school that morning and Harri wanted to look at everything that was in the newspapers about him. Harri kept saying that we couldn't sing Michael Jackson's songs anymore because he was dead, and I told him that we still could and he was then still very upset and said 'but Michael Jackson can't, because he can't move, or sing, or dance and his heart doesn't work anymore!'.

This morning Aaron got up at 2.45 am to watch the memorial service live. He was very emotional when I got up and said that he felt like he had lost 'a friend' as he remembered that he listened to Michael Jackson's music all the time when his family was going through a hard time, so it brought a lot of memories back. He recorded it, so Harri and I watched it this afternoon. Harri wasn't really sure what was going on and I explained to him that Michael Jackson was in the special box with the flowers on the top . He looked very shocked and then asked 'where's Heavenly Father!!!?' as he knew that MJ is with Heavenly Father. I then reminded him that his body was still on earth, but his spirit was with Heavenly Father and he then asked 'where's his glove and hat!?'. He was quite concerned about them!

I have to admit I had a few tears myself as we watched it. It's very sad to think that three children have lost their Dad. No matter how unusual he turned out to be, his music is incredible and there will never be anyone else like him again. My boys definitely will never let us forget him or his music! If you are ever in the mood for some MJ hits, just come to the King house and I'm sure they will put on a live concert for you! ;)