I'm starting with the man in the mirror, I'm asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer, If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make a change

(Michael Joseph Jackson, 1958-2009)

The loss of my brother-in-law Michael Joseph Jackson could not come second to any of the myriad ideas for an article this week and so today I join the world in bidding farewell to a brilliantly, marvellously, gifted and strange wonder of a human being. On Thursday 25th June 2009, Michael Jackson joined the constellation of ancestral musicians some eleven weeks shy of his 51st birthday. This time when I say Rest in Peace, I mean it literally as his death, unlike his living and his dying, may have been the only peace destined for this legend. I would not be a good sister if I did not write this on behalf of my youngest sister Allison.

This is the story. It must have been some kind of group fantasy really that involved five sisters surnamed Rey growing up in St. Kitts in the early 1970s, just about the time that a group of five brothers surnamed Jackson from Gary, Indiana, burst upon the scene to capture not only our musical sensibilities but also our hearts and mostly our imaginations. You see, we each picked a brother based upon their age range but then did some juggling based on who preferred what kind of look. Tito was my man. My sisters thought he was ugly but I liked him because he was different. They all had fairly big Afros but Tito often sported a cap. That was enough for me. I cannot remember whether we were going to go to America find them and marry them or whether they were going to come to St. Kitts and find us. What actually happened was that we stayed right there in St. Kitts and married them in our minds. Jackie was assigned to my older sister Jasmine. Jermaine, now Muhammad Abdul-Aziz was assigned to Ronnie, the sister after me, and Marlon was my sister Lynn’s heart throb. Michael belonged to my last sister Allison. Though we agreed on the assignments, I somehow thought we were all a little bit jealous of Ali because it was so clear that Michael was going to be the star of stars and she was just too young to appreciate it. On one thing we all agreed – Michael was cute.

It was not yet the age of Information and Communications Technology and our parents did not have a clue that their under-aged daughters had all been betrothed to the Jackson 5. I think that was the summer of 1970. Our mother may have suspected something because she worked at home and was a bit more lenient regarding what we listened to on the radio. And we were not only listening, we were singing along, loudly, not only being the fiancés of the Jackson 5, but being the Jackson 5 themselves. We knew all the words to I Want You Back and ABC and The Love You Save and One More Chance. I think we were all married to Michael when they sang I’ll Be There. The brooms, mops and other implements of household chores became the microphones and the siblings doubled as both performers and adoring fans. We were also watching the clock and listening for the sound of the car approaching at 12 noon. By the time Daddy got out of the car to come inside for lunch, he would find five Saints, halos and all, listening to the Christian radio station PJD2.

Having established the relationship, we, along with the rest of the world eventually forgot about the other brothers, some whose solo careers seemed promising at best and even Jermaine’s Grammy award nomination seemed pale in comparison to Michael’s stardom. We welcomed the sisters and baby Randy, commiserated with Ronnie when Jermaine married Berry Gordy’s daughter, pouring over the wedding pictures in Ebony. As we grew older and Daddy relaxed a bit, we bought the records, singing not so loudly when he was home but revelling in the Christmas album. But it was impossible for anyone on planet Earth to take the place of Michael.

Though I was never one to disrespect people of any faith, it was Michael Jackson who caused me to pay attention to the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Prior to reading that he was a devout Witness who neither drank nor smoked, these were strangers with whom my father got into arguments because he refused any witnessing if they would not first join him in prayer - this, in spite of my mother’s whispered warnings to let the people witness in peace. Somehow they became more special in my esteem because Michael Jackson was one. It is therefore quite ironic that there are all these stories about his dependence on legal drugs surrounding his death. The final word on the cause of death is not yet in though. I can only imagine that the media frenzy will become a little worse with episodes based on his estate, his children, perhaps new allegations and I am almost sure, new music.

I think the other sisters lost interest as Michael began to look more and more bizarre and I wondered over the years if after each nose job he actually liked what he saw when he looked in the mirror. We believed that there really was a skin condition but were all turned off by Michael’s need to remake his face and we begged him, no more, after Off The Wall in 1979 but there would be more, much more till the original was no more. Those were my disco dancing days with best friend Dawne. We remained loyal in the face of the allegations that hounded him, always hoping that his name would be cleared. I did not understand the expectation of normalcy in a man whose entire life had been anything but normal.

We would sit transfixed through his televised live performances understanding by our own excitement, why fans would faint and be lifted and hand passed atop the crowds to be attended by the medics on hand. I felt like I wanted to faint too but it would have taken all of them in the room to lift me up and no one was going to stop watching anyhow so I didn’t bother. I remained a fan even to the end, reminding my students here in Anguilla in the 1980s that Michael’s phenomenal success was by dint of hard work. I had read of his gruelling sixteen-hour work days in preparation for a show and was able to assure my students that those performances were the products of that level of practice. Michael and the rest of the world saw the vision with Thriller the best seller and now that he’s gone the ghouls will certainly come out. However, I still equate perfection with Michael’s onstage performance of Billie Jean (1983) – shortish black pants with white stripe, loose-fitting, moving easily with him showing short white bobbed socks (silver for the Motown at 25 performance) and shiny black loafers covering those golden feet. On more than one occasion when witnessing traditional African dancers perform, I would think of Michael Jackson who may have been influenced by James Brown in his perfecting of the “moonwalk” but when I saw very similar moves in African traditional dance, I knew its origins. Michael made it his signature along with the white-gloved left hand, the toe-twisting, leg lifting, the jumps and the climax of the moonwalk putting him momentarily on the very tips of his toes.

Stay on your toes Michael. Having you in our family has been an honour and you will never be forgotten.

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