Metro invited letters to commemorate the one year anniversary of Michael Jackson's passing. Having had a year to think about it, I came up with this short meditation on his life. Metro published the last sentence of the letter on June 25, 2010. Here is the entire text:

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While much can be said of the caliber and creativity of Michael Jackson's work, his personal story inescapably fuses the tragic with the transcendent. From childhood his life was devoted to pleasing others through his extraordinary talents, leaving his own needs to manifest themselves in eccentric and bizarre ways. Still, through the haze of superstardom, material wealth and family dysfunction, the sincerity of his message is paradoxically magnified by his own inner pain and neatly epitomized in the lyrics to "Man In The Mirror" - if you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make a change.

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This day also marked the one year anniversary of the passing of my grandmother, Helen.