Over the last week, I have been challenged when thinking of the deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett.
Both were iconic images, both were legendary performers and both were flawed human beings.
Yesterday I told Jeff that Michael Jackson was a legendary performer, and I wanted to believe that despite all his controversy he had been a good father and perhaps that was the reason his mother Katherine took care of her grandchildren.
The same day I finally saw the footage of Redmond O'Neal visiting his mother while in handcuffs and shackles. His arrest and imprisonment was kept from her and his father Ryan advised him not to rattle the chains as his mother did not know. My eyes started watering as I heard him call her Mommy and tell her it was her son there.
How do we remember these people? Is Michael the young boy who sang with Diana Ross and his brothers, the man who slept in oxygen chambers on a glorified amusement park, a child predator? Is Farrah the girl in the red bathing suit, an angel, the abused woman from the Burning Bed, the confused woman on David Letterman? Or are they someone else altogether?
I wish I could have seen an image of Michael like I did of Farrah at the end. The image of her clutching her rosary and praying and crossing herself before an MRI. Something that showed me that underneath it all was a person, like me; a sinner seeking redemption, like me.
