Magical October

Making some things clear

It has been 27 years since Michael came to Argentina for the first and only time. And during all that time, this story slept in a notebook, kept in a drawer of my bureau. But first of all, I introduce myself: My name is Silvana, I am from Las Rosas, a small city in the province of Santa Fe, in Argentina.

My story with Michael begins back in 1983, in November when I heard "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'", but by then I had no interest in him. I see him at the Grammy Awards, when he wins 8 awards. I remember saying to my parents: "That boy gets a lot of prizes. Let's move on to May 1984. An article published in the newspaper "Clarín" about Michael's success is the kick for my fanaticism, which I left aside there around the middle of 1996. Why? I don't know... I did know a few things afterwards (about Bashir, I think the performance at MSG, the accusations and the trial) and of course, his death. I remember that day perfectly. I left the school I was substituting (I am an English teacher) and went to my parents' house to give private lessons. My mother received me with a: "I bet you don't know who's really sick" I couldn't think of anyone in particular and she simply said: "Miguelito" (as she usually calls him.) The world stopped. Michael? Serious? The TV was on CNN in Spanish, it was true. When I got home, it was a fait accompli... Michael had died. It took me years to be able to listen to songs and watch videos without crying and at the end of 2018, a few days before Christmas, I looked for "Who's Loving You?" on Youtube and suddenly everything returned as if Michael had never left my life. (I always say that his love was asleep inside me) And I started to reacquaint with his world again, with so many things I didn't know, having been stuck 22 years before.

And it was then that the need to share my experience when he had come to Argentina arose. After months of transcribing and working on my story, linked to that of my best friend, Mary, president of the fan club "Heal The World" at the time, I present to you what was the wonderful week from October 6 to 13.

A few clarifications before we start:

* Everything I'm about to tell you happened just as I say it. I have many proofs of what I am telling, although not of everything. However, I have no need to lie, nor to make things bigger.

* I apologize for the quality of the screenshots. They are taken from the VHS video shot by one of the boys from the fan club and converted to a DVD after almost 27 years of sleeping on a shelf. I put them in to illustrate the story although you can later watch the video for yourselves.

* The story is taken as I wrote it a few days after coming from Buenos Aires, intertwined with Mary's. There may be some things retouched for the sake of expressing myself better, but I tried to respect what I had written then.

* The first section (Waiting for Michael) is taken from my diary, with the news about Michael during that year and its relation to this story.

* Thanks: to my husband Marcos for the very improved scheme of how Mary saw the backstage during the 3rd concert; to Rockin Robin who, with a dummy-proof tutorial, showed me how to upload photos; to The Original Joker for offering me his help if I needed it and to Álvaro, a friend of Jesús María, Córdoba who I discovered on the Internet, researching for my fan fiction and who has very good photos of those days and who generously shared them with me. He also encouraged me to do this story and publish it. To all of them, thank you, but the greatest thanks goes to Michael, the reason we are all united in this place.

I look forward to your questions, doubts and I will try to answer them as clearly as possible. Enjoy!