Michael may you rest in the peace you never found in life.

I remember the first time I saw him. It was shortly before the release of his Thriller album in 1982, I was only 5 years old, and our local newspaper had an article about him that included a color picture of him in a yellow and white outfit (I later would have that picture as a glossy poster on the wall of my childhood room for nearly 10 years). I asked my mom who he was because he had my immediate trust and fascination.

That fascination never went away and I guess you could say it evolved to nearly a full blown obsession. Until I was an adult, at least.

Throughout my childhood, every video, every news conference, every song he ever did was recorded, or bought, and watched over and over again. I remember being so incredibly mad at my mother because she wouldn't let me stay up after 8 pm so I could watch his Motown 25 performance. To this day, I know every word and every movement of every song he ever recorded. Except for the last album which I never bought because it didn't really seem to offer anything new.

I owned everything from magnets for the fridge to a Barbie Doll of him that served as our Ken Doll, my walls were covered in posters of him and I wore his perfume (which is still a beautiful scent, even if the jar long ago dried up).

I even belonged to his fan club.

I grew out of it, of course, when real boys started to catch my eye. And I eventually began to take down his posters, put away his CD's, and stopped taping everything he did.

In recent years, I even threw most of it out, though I'm kind of regretting that action since he's now gone. I wish I had kept the newspaper clippings I had and a few of the other items I had collected over the years. All I have left now are the CD's, his Thriller vinyl (which my husband bought for me as a gift last month), and the Doll.

Unfortunately, even I had to admit that he seemed to have lost his mind in recent years. He just went really weird, even for a Hollywood star and we all know most of them are nuts.

But no matter how messed up his life was, you had to admit, he was a truly brilliant and magnetic performer, even if he was at his best between Off The Wall and Bad.

Then came the announcement that he was gone, and I suddenly found myself crying. Something that I honestly didn't expect since I felt I had grown out of it. Michael was such a large part of my childhood that was suddenly ripped away at a still young age. I think its not so much Michael himself, but the fact that he had such a large presence in my childhood, and that now that part of my life is truly gone with only the vague memories he left behind.

You had a truly great impact on this world for very many people, Michael. I will miss you.