A Gift All Michael Jackson Fans Have

I was happy to hear that Katherine Jackson will be the legal guardian for Michael Jackson's children. I just hope she's able to keep Joe Jackson away from them. It's funny -- people cited her age and wrote her off as not the best choice to raise three small children. First, looks are deceiving -- Katherine Jackson looks good for a seventy-nine year-old woman. Second, women Katherine Jackson's age all over America are raising their grandchildren, some for reasons more sad than hers. Third, as Iyanla Vanzant says, there is nothing more powerful than a child of God with a made-up mind. Once Mrs. Jackson made up her mind to raise her grandchildren, game over. I wish her and her grandchildren well.

Thinking of this reminds me of two incidents I had with my great-nephews involving Michael Jackson and showing that he does indeed live on in his music. I had two 'tween great-nephews over a few weeks ago to spend the night, and both had Michael Jackson songs loaded on their MP3 players and were listening to them. They proclaimed themselves major Michael Jackson fans despite the fact that many of the songs they were listening to came out long before they were born. Since I believe in putting boys to work, I had them scrambling their own eggs for breakfast. It was cute to watch them scrambling their eggs and moving to the beat of Michael Jackson songs -- one was listening to "Billie Jean," the other, "Thriller," -- through their MP3 earbuds. Michael Jackson does indeed live on through his music.

The second involved my eight year-old great nephew, whom I sometimes pick up from visitation with his father. He had returned from New York state to visit his grandmother, and somehow we got on the subject of Michael Jackson. He informed me that he, like Michael, could stand on his tip-toes, although not at that moment because he was wearing flip-flops, and that he knew how to moonwalk.

I asked him, "How'd you learn to moonwalk?"

He replied, "I practiced. It's a gift all Michael Jackson fans have, you know."

I responded, "I was a Michael Jackson fan before you were born and I don't know how to moonwalk."

He replied, "Well, I practice. You can't moonwalk because you don't practice. You haven't been practicing, now have you, Auntie?" A smug smile crept across his precocious, cute little face.

He was right. Auntie had not been practicing her moonwalk.

And later that night, in the quasi-privacy of my kitchen, I practiced my moonwalk. And I almost got it. It's a gift all Michael Jackson fans have, you know.