I don’t work on Fridays so I have the luxury to browse the news early in the morning as I wake up. I log in to Twitter and saw the Breaking News tweet: Michael Jackson is dead. Earlier, I have read a tweet saying Patrick Swayze died but it was a false report.

So I checked Yahoo News and had to wake my mother up to tell her the news. It was true.

The King of Pop is gone. I drove home last Thursday afternoon and the last thing I listened to on the radio was the big announcement about the contest to win a free trip to see Michael Jackson in London. The promotion had been going on for almost a month here in Dubai. Everyone is anticipating his big comeback.

Now there are concerts to do. No more comeback, no more moonwalk, no more amazing stage performance.  How sad, how tragic and how lonely. Suddenly I felt the urge to dig all the cassette tapes we have at my parent’s home. We had lots of MJ cassettes, those plastic stuff popular long before CD’s were born. They were part of the music of my youth, mine and my brothers. I am sure lots of people around the world felt the same wave of longing for a Jackson song. His death prompted surge in record sales in Amazon, iTunes and music stores.

I sit here and remember his Thriller video, how one of my brothers get to be MJ and the rest play zoombies. I smile when I hear, “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” because I have dedicated it secretly to someone special long ago (too long ago I can’t even remember who). I stop and admire all Michael’s contribution to the music industry because I realize that I stopped listening to his music when the scandals came which is unfair. His music and his private life are two different entities. It can’t be denied that he is one of the greatest music icons of the century, despite the troubled life.

He is gone but his music will live forever. I won’t stop loving his music, even after his death.