So it’s been a year since Michael died.  I’ve been weighing in my mind what the tone of this piece should be: sentimental? comedic? somber?  I was looking at the program and the ticket stub from his Memorial, thinking about it all.  So much has happened within my own personal life these past 12 months, it puts everything that happens outside of it in a very small, at times completely insignifcant space.

One thing that’s already become clear is in death, Michael’s public image has almost completely reverted back to the way I like to remember him.  When I hear his songs, my face lights up.  I think of the innocence of my own youth, I think of the days and nights learning and mimicking the choreography of all the great videos.  I think of still fantastic pop music.  As I looked through old pictures, CDs, and music videos, I picked on something that had been there from the beginning but caught my attention more now that he’s gone. 

The Smile.  I’m sure my female friends may say ‘Of course!’, but as a guy, it just wasn’t something I ever paid any attention to.  I think we can say for certain Michael had at least two major demons he fought in his life (abuse to his mind as a child, abuse to his body as an adult).  But when he danced, we danced with him.  When he sung, we sung with him.  And when he smiled, we smiled with him.

Not counting the complete innocence of my pre-school years, I was a fairly well known ‘non-smiler’ growing up.  What can I say?  I was a walking molotov cocktail of Malcolm X/Spike Lee/2Pac/Public Enemy and Wyandotte County.  A very funny anecdote which I’ll never forget: my first semester in the Lucas Building, I went looking for Dr. Todd Boyd.  I was so happy to be in California, and the first thing he ever said to me was, “You ain’t got to be SMILING!”  That story still makes me laugh because when I was a teenager, that was MY attitude!  To paraphrase a Katt Williams joke, “Dang man, you mad at breakfast?!?”  The life and times of the socially conscious.

I conquered the demons of my childhood, I really don’t know if I can say the same about Michael.  My singing voice is OK, and I can’t spin as fast as I used to, but I smile more now, naturally, than I ever have in my life.  I can remember the time when it seemed like only an MJ song had that power over me, but now almost everything does.  As my lady referred to them once, ‘the greatest cheeks in the history of cheekdom’ are now on display on a nearly daily basis.  I had to fight for it (like everything else), but I’ve earned the right to smile.  If that’s the part of Michael I take with me moving forward, I don’t think that’s too bad.

R.I.P. MJ.