I'm waking up this morning so full of pain that I dont know if I will be able to function.  Yesterday depleted all of my poise and my energy to smile.  The night was restless and the tears just would not stop falling.  Why must we persecute the ones who love us?  Why in this world of opportunity and excesses do we find it sporting to debase those miniscle few who put it all on the line, bare their souls, and bleed for us?  Why?  Seeing Michael Jackson laying lifeless on a hospital gurney and watching his last performance less than 24 hours prior, was like a slap of reality to my heart.  Hearing that haunting voice on a phone recording simply paralyzed me.  I was not ready for that.  But are we ever ready to hear that which we think unimaginable when it involves someone we love?  Never.

I don't know if I will be able to watch much more of the trial.  It's too hard.  What I heard yesterday is not what I wanted to play in my mind as I think of Michael Jackson.  He was the music of my life.  But this recording has changed the sounds I hear when ever I hear his name.  This voice that tells me, Michael is in need of care and no one us there to help him.  His life should not have had to end before his voice was heard.

Why is he gone?  Was he in any agony, any pain? 

I have a book that I keep near to me, When God Sheds Tears.  It is where I turn when I have those questions.  I know that God has shed many, many tears for what was allowed to be the existence of Michael Jackson in his lifetime.  And I know that Michael shed many tears for not having the ability to change it.  Now it's our time.  

God have mercy on Michael's children, his mother, his family, his friends and for us his fans who in our own way were all of those things to Michael Jackson.  We loved him even when we could not find the way to tell him except by example.  He knew we were there even when he could not reach out to us or even know our names.  It was the love affair of all times.  And though he is gone from us physically, we still can feel his love carressing us at the level of our hearts and I know he can feel ours being returned to him.  

I have heard it said over the last 24 hours that this is the next trial of the century.  But for me, this is the only trial of monumental proportions because it is the trial of the quiet, compassionate man who came to us, the people, gave us every part of him, taught us that love is the only thing that matters, was persecuted enmasse by many, and then crucified like a criminal.  Reminds me of someone else.  And God shed tears for him.  

This morning I'm alive.  This morning I can sit at my computer and put my thoughts down.  This morning as every morning I wake, I ask myself did it take for Michael Jackson to die to receive back the love he gave so freely and abundantly to us all?  When will we ever learn, when we ever learn?

 15 Years…

Septembers when leaves are turning brown
And autumn cools the air
Was once my very favorite time of year
Until entered in, despair

I remember how I loved those days
How they always made me smile
How I’d sit and watch the falling leaves
For just a little while

They were special days, they soothed my soul
I remember them oh so well
But that was then, and this now
And I’ve a different truth to tell

Came September 27th 
In nineteen ninety-six
A storm blew in that broke my life
For which there is no fix

So quickly it came
Like a thief in the night
And the walls came down in a tumble
A deafening roar
cutting straight to the core
And my heart could do nothing but crumble 

Thy will be done…

15 years have passed since that stormy day
When the rain slicked roads held sorrow
The day I wish I could erase from time
That forever changed my every tomorrow

That season that once gave such joy to me
Now holds nothing but pain to remember
It’s hard now to even fathom that I 
Ever loved this month called September

Does a mother ever really know?
Or even think by chance
That children God put into her life
Can be as fleeting as a blink, a glance

Here to stay or at best you think
They’ll be in our lives forever
As we grow old, they might grow away
But never gone, forever

In September 15 years ago
My life took a different turn
It’s said for each heartache we’re dealt in life
There’s a lesson from it to learn

This life can change…I know that now
In the twinkling of an eye
So kiss your children each time they leave
Say I love you before every goodbye

I‘ve lived 15 years, with just half a heart
Knowing he’ll never come home again
But he will always be, the best part of me
In my heart… where he’ll forever remain.

My Angel
My Heart
Raphael Theron Mathis
12/14/1971 – 09/27/1996

 Tomorrow commemorates the 2nd anniversary of the day our beloved was laid to his final rest.  It is a sad day in history.  It is the day that Michael stopped spinning the web of fantastic.  It was the day that those dancing feet were neatly, carefully tucked away for all times.  It was the day those beautiful, caring eyes, already closed, would unequivocally never see the light of another day.  It was the day that this old heart almost stopped beating.  It was the saddest final of my life.  I miss Michael Jackson more on every day that I wake.  Why do i love him so much?  I can't give you all the reasons.  It would take the rest of my life.  But I will say that I love him because he came; he gave and gave and gave, and he never took from anyone.  He did all that he did, not for accolades or notoriety or fame; but for love.  His love is everlasting.  I love and miss Michael and I cannot let go becase even with all that he gave to the world, what he received back from it was pain and anguish and hurt and humiliation.  And because of that, his death by another's hands, was in my mind like putting the final nail in the coffin.  It hurts so much that he was taken before the world was able to show him by example and by deed that he was the MOST worthy.  Worthy of living a peaceful existence with other human beings.  Worthy of being treated with respect and dignity.  Worthy of being uplifed and exemplified and honored by us whom he had given all of his life to in an attempt to rid us of the ugliness of existung n a sadistic society.   Healing what ever it was positioned hurt us.  He gave us magic, and hope, and promise.  He gave us all of him and more, more, more.  Then they just took him away.

When they could find no dishonesty, no dirty gossip, nothing to tarnish his name, they created something.  And what they created was more hurtful to him than anything he could have ever imagined.  They stripped his dignity and shamed his heart.  And then they robbed his spirit and stole his soul.  All because they found it entertaining and profitable.  Now we are here, all of us, still hurting and crying and lost without him;  all because Michael refused to use their tactics and remained ever humble.  He never furrowed his brow or spat profanities or threw punches.  He simply held fast to God's unchanging hand and forgave and asked that people not misjudge him or believe lies about him.  That was his way.  Michael is gone.  Michael is no long among the living.  He is gone.  

I love you Michael Jackson.  I miss your earthy presence.  It should never have come to this.  You should still be dancing.  Every night before I close my eyes, I thank God for you.  You showed me and the world that no matter how much love you give, hate in the retrospect, is capable of and if given the chance, will destroy it.  I've always been taught that love is enough.  In this world, I doubt that will ever truly be.  If you could not survive it when you were love, it almost feels hopeless.  

Why do I love you so?  Love is.  That's all that I know and that's all I ned to know.