Michael Jackson’s dead.

I guess you probably know that.

So, ok, well, how are we supposed to feel about it?

His music was ok, I danced to his songs in the 80s’, but let’s face it, anyone who danced in the 80s would have danced to Michael Jackson at some point, so I don’t think that qualifies me as a fan.

I certainly didn’t know him personally, and I didn’t really care a great deal about him as a public figure. Unless being vaguely aware of the tabloid gossip about him over the years counts? No probably not.

But still, I feel …something…sadness maybe?

Why do we feel sadness at the death of someone we don’t know? I think it’s partly sympathy for the people they left behind – how would I feel if my brother, my father, my son or my friend died? And it’s partly mourning the things in public figures we empathise with.

At first glance there may not be much abut Michael Jackson that the rest of us can relate to. A flamboyantly dressed vegetarian superstar with a pet snake and, at best, inappropriate relationships with children? No, there’s not much there I can connect to, but no-one as addicted to media websites as I am can ignore all the Jackson hoo-ha of late, and I got interested enough to spend a couple of hours skipping around the net to find interviews and video clips about him.

All it seems to add up to is a mass of contradictions. With all the money and vested interests in either condemning of vindicating him, I think it’s almost impossible to get to the truth of the child abuse accusations, but he admitted to having twelve year old boys in his bed, if that’s all that happened it’s at least a little weird, and possibly quite sinister. And yet it is also true that he adored children and wanted to feel that he had made a positive difference to the lives of suffering children. He was arguably one of the most successful popstars of all time, yet he appeared to be almost pathologically shy and incapable of letting people get close to him.

He was lauded for breaking through so many barriers for African Americans in entertainment and he was the whitest looking black man we’ve ever seen.

He talked a lot about how much he loved his family yet it appears that he barely ever saw them. He desperately wanted to be a father, yet he hated and feared his own father so much that just seeing him could make him sick.

He achieved all his dreams of success at a very young age and yet claimed to have been desperately unhappy for most of his life. He was adored by millions and wrote songs about how crushingly lonely he was.

He wrote about stars with drug problems, how sad it was for people like Elvis or Jim Morrison to die in such a way, and he swore that he would never let that happen to him.

There’s a lot about Jackson that doesn’t make sense, but most of us can understand the pain of loneliness and isolation, too many people can connect with being hurt by and afraid of their father, even worse, many of us know what it is to become the one thing we didn’t want to be.

So, although I’m not heartbroken or even really shedding tears for Michael Jackson, I’m glad I can feel some sadness for a deeply troubled man who couldn’t get the better of his demons. I think we all should be able to do at least that much, it’s how we stay connected with the world and the way we all feel about ourselves and the people around us.

Vale Michael, and here's hoping your children find more peace than you did.

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