To all of my Michael Jacksons: Vitiligo or not!

We all thought Michael Jackson would live forever or at least outlive our passion for him such that in the event of his passing, we'd be able to earnestly pay out respects to the music icon and proceed with out affairs.

But news of his death almost two weeks ago, hit the world hard. and many hearts (like mine) are still bleeding at the suddenness of his death and the sadness that took up a lot of his highly successful life.

While it is tue that the planned 50 concerts with o2 in london might have worked to revive his career, which had been put on a back burner due to the child molestation accusations, his reclusive lifestyle thereafter, and the increasing public attention to new acts like diddy, usher, fifty cents and akon among others; it has served to increase the grief at the resurrection that wasn't to be.

I mourn Michael Jackson, the talent that was, and the new phase of his career which we hoped would take off after his london concerts. I mourn his gentle, giving soul, his love for children and his shy smile and soft voive.

I mourn him as the young dark skinned, snub nosed boy with the soprano voice who sang his heart out to the ABC song; and I mourn him as the paper skinned effeminate and almost anorexic man he was at his death; and all others in between.

Even after his death the question lingers about his drastically altered physical image: was he really diagnosed with vitiligo, that rare condition that causes a gradual, patchy lightening of the skin? Or was his fairer than white skin a result of the various plastic surgeries he was alleged to have undergone in the efforts to renounce his black origin? (The same black origin he proudly proclaimed in the 1993 interview with Oprah, while he beat his white chest and declared himself a proud black man.) Or maybe his whiteness was a result of the efforts to unify his skin colour after vitiligo had unleashed its patchy, variegated wrath on the once black man's skin.

I and many others are resigned to never knowing the truth behind Michael Jackson's fading colour but we continue to be in awe of his talent, kindness and tenderness. we will continue to hold the fonest thoughts of him, as the smiling, afro haired, brown skinned boy of 'gimme one more chance'; as the curly haired, shy voiced, adolescent boy of 'thriller'; as the handsome mullato of 'beat it'; and the pointy nosed opaque skinned effeminate waif of 'rock my world'.

We miss you MJ, we miss the innovational dances like the moonwalk and anti gravity lean; we miss the yells that punctuate your music. we miss the passion in your music, we miss all that you've been to us for four decades. And we regret what the world put you through.