Final Wishes

The one thing that bothered me about the Michael Jackson memorial (other than the fact that Mariah Carey was wearing a dress cut down to there and up to there for a funeral – it’s called decorum, Meems. You should look into it.) was that they put the kids up on the stage at the end. Just not right.

If there is one person who would have known how much being in the public eye at too young of an age can inflict damage, it was Michael Jackson. And if there was one thing that he did right, it was to try to keep his kids out of the view of the rest of the world. Other than the balcony incident. And the putting them in veils. And the naming them all Michael or Something-Michael. And the odd baby mama situation. But otherwise. To the best of his ability. And, to put it mildly, he was constitutionally . . . ill-equipped for the role. And given that he didn’t exactly have the best role models for protective parenting, I think he did his best.

Then of course, once he’s gone, his family just plops them right out there, front and center at the Staples Center. In front of God and the Internet. Michael must have been spinning in that Cadillac Escalade hubcap of a coffin. I kept looking at poor little Paris and thinking of Christina Onassis. Lord, I hope there’s somebody stable in those kids lives. I'd bet good money that it would have been their father's final wish that they'd have a better shot at a normal life than he ever did.

Okay, addendum: I just saw Al Sharpton's comment. D'oh.

Given that those kids went beyond the point of sheltered and into bunkered territory, what do you suppose the odds are that they had any clue that anyone thought their father was strange. Most kids think their family is normal. Well, until they get to be teenagers, and then you could be June Cleaver and your kid is going to think you're the weirdest thing on the planet. But his kids are still pretty young. This could have been news to them. Sitting there at a funeral, in front of 20,000 people, may have been the first time they had heard Dad was a little "unusual". Thanks, Al. That may have been a discussion better held over milk and cookies back at home.