Heaven Can Wait

There Are Ways To Get There

I was 12 years old when Michael Jackson died. 12 years. 7 months and 19 days. That's 151 months. 659 weeks. 4,614 days. 110,736 hours. 6,644, 160 minutes. 398,649,600 seconds.

I remember where I was. And every anguished, salty tear that dripped down my face in the ensuing month.

From the moment, I was three, the man had me entranced. His music. His dance. His heart. He would later replace the man I had so lovingly called "father" before said man walked out on my younger sister and I. Yes, in a chapter of my mind, Michael Jackson was the father I never had. The best friend I always wanted. And the lover I always dreamed of.

Give it time.

Give it time is what people said as I continued the years without him. As if time is some magic elixir that will heal the pain of losing one so dearly loved. How can time take away the pain of an unspoken goodbye?

How can time fill the vast and empty place that is my heart as I watched the world keep turning without him?

Time can't even give me the answer to the simple question of "why"?. No. Time does not heal. Time is merely a teacher. A teacher that is forcing me to make room for the pain, the grief, and the neverending heartbreak.

And I am its unwilling teacher.

My mother could not understand why around the months of June and August, I tended to recede into my shell of depression even deeper. How could she understand that June reminded of the month in which he was taken from this world forever and August reminded me of the day he would never have again.

This August birthday, however, six years later, I vowed to be different.

Tomorrow would be different. It had to be. I would smile, and it would be believable. My smile would say "I'm happy." "Yes, I feel much better." I would no longer be the sad little girl who lost her idol. I would start fresh; be Jesse James, the girl named after the outlaw. It's the only way I'll make it through.

I glanced up at the smiling, alabaster face of my idol that adorned my walls. In 30 minutes, it would be his birthday. He would have been 57. A single tear streaks down the right side of my face as if out some corny, romance movie.

I sighed heavily. So, as a Michael Jackson fan, how do I heal? Is there ever a possibility of any healing? Ever? When everyday, something happens that disturbs the festering wound in my heart when it's just barely begun to scab over? Just when I thought there was no more to be said. No more lies to be told. How am I supposed to heal when the anniversary of death and birthday roll through like the tides, and I find myself constantly reeling from one reminder or another.

Wiping the tears off my face, I clear the homework my professor had assigned to me off my bed.

I hadn't even looked at it.

Life was a blur these days. My mother stressed over bills and my sixteen year old sister's expensive private school bills. My room, once so tidily kept and organized had taken a turn for the worst. I simply didn't have time for anything anymore.

10 minutes.

Actually, I no longer cared. The one thing that looked remotely organized was the assortment of Michael Jackson cds and collectables I kept on a bookshelf in the corner of my room.

Why would I care? How am I supposed to deal with the skeptics, haters, and relatives with their vile comments and suggestions of a relative because they think I'm unbalanced and insane? How was I supposed to continue without Michael's light? Any light? How did I dare go another day without him?

"There are ways to get there...if you care enough for the living."

Oh Michael.

A loud bang woke me out of my mental musing; my sister barged into my room, the door slamming into the wall.