Michael Jackson: The Memorial

Going into this, I was worried that the memorial would be more like a circus. But I have to say I was way more than pleasantly surprised.

When they announced who was going to be preforming at the service, I was worried that they would be doing outrageous remakes of all the most famous Michael Jackson songs. But every performance was breath taking and moved to me to tears.

Mariah Carey performed, and I was a little worried. Her voice was shaky and sounded like maybe she had lost her voice... for good. But she pulled it together by the end and ended the performance on an awesome note. It left me teary eyed.

Stevie Wonder was amazing as always. There isn't much else to say either than he did an awesome job and I was left feeling inspired.

Shaheen Jafargholi, the 12 year old Britain's Got Talent finalist sang "Who's Lovin' You" which was very reminiscent of the Jackson Five days. I'm not going to lie, I pretty much bawled when he thanks Michael for everything he did.

John Mayer made a wonderful contribution to "Human Nature", in which he only played guitar. I thought it was great that he didn't try to remake the song, but just added his own little part to it. It was beautiful.

Jennifer Hudson did an awesome performance as well. There isn't much else to say about the performance, either than she really made it beautiful and I cried.

And my favourite performance of the day was Usher, who got so choked up near the end that he had to stop briefly. My heart broke when he stood next to Michael's casket and sang.

The speeches of the night were amazing. Queen Latifah read a beautiful poem, Brooke Shields talked about fond childhood memories, and Kobe Bryant and Magic Johnson talked about memorable moments. But the best speech was the very last one, made by Paris Jackson herself. As many know, Michael had a tendency to hide his children from the media, so many were surprised when Paris stepped up to the microphone to talk about her father's passing. She didn't get much out, but what said said caused me to burst into tears. She said "Since I was born daddy has been the best dad anyone could ever imagine, and I just wanted to say that I love him." She burst into tears and turned to her aunt Janet for comfort. That was perhaps the most powerful moment of the entire ceremony.

All in all the memorial was a memorial fit for a king, which he was. It was not nutsy and even the fans were respectful and kept the screaming to a minimum. It was heart felt, emotional, and tasteful. It was the perfect ending to an amazing, yet tortured, man's life.

I would just like to say that growing up, Michael was a big inspiration to me. His music was infectious. Even though his life was plagued with controversy, he inspired millions and changed pop music. He was the king of pop and for that, he deserves to rest in peace. God bless Michael Jackson. Thanks for giving the world your gift and giving us some of the most influential music of our time. Rest in Peace.

Keep swimming,
Jill