The amount of love, adoration and attention that has been directed towards Michael Jackson in the days since he died has been impressive. So much so, it occurs to me that perhaps all of the love he’s received while being dead may be more than he received during the entire last ten years that he was alive.
This perception of mine might be inaccurate and unfair in regards to Michael Jackson, but, in regards to people in general, there may be some truth to the idea that we tend to under-appreciate the loved ones in our lives while they’re here.
We tend to take them for granted. We tend to assume they’ll always be here. We don’t express to them nearly enough how much we care for them and how important they are in our lives.
And then, when they’re gone, there is an effusion of love, grief and remorse as well, due to feelings that we didn’t cherish, respect, value and love them more while they were here.
So what can we do about this?
Perhaps we need to start missing our loved ones now before they’re gone, appreciating the void that would be created in our lives if they were abruptly taken from us.
And then we need to express our gratitude for having them in our lives and demonstrate our love for them while they’re still here by maximizing our loving behaviors towards them and minimizing our unloving behaviors.
We need to let go of the petty grievances that we’ve been holding against them. We need to let go of old resentments and hurts.
If we have a tendency to yell, we stop yelling. If we have a tendency to abuse them in other ways, we stop the abuse.
If our tendency is to exaggerate, misrepresent the truth, lie and deny, we stop these behaviors as well.
We stop being inconsiderate, selfish and self-centered.
We listen. We validate. We respect their boundaries.
We recognize those aspects of ourselves we need to change and we work on making those changes.
We try to anticipate problems and offer solutions, without being asked and without needing to get anything in return.
When the inevitable finally does happen and our loved ones are gone, we will still grieve and miss them deeply, but there will be the satisfaction and the peace of mind knowing that while they were here we did everything we could to create and maintain a loving relationship with them and to let them know and feel the extent of our love, respect and devotion to them.
8 Comments
Great posts, & timely information & insights! I will bookmark your page, & relish your updates, Walter. Keep ‘em coming!
thank you!
It is heartening that the public is remembering Michael Jackson for his many talents and putting aside the “circus” that haunted him his last several years. He was an extremely talented, sensitive human being. I was in high school when he became popular. I still have his early records. I still enjoy listening to his music, watching his dance. He had a very rough childhood, from what I understand, and internal demons seemed to torture him as the last several years of his life unfolded. It is gratifying that people are willing to forget the negative, and appreciate what he did provide to all of us, globally. What a lesson to learn, for me, for all of us, that we all have people in our lives that have annoyed or disappointed us, that have frustrated or “let us down” in some way, at least as we perceive it. What a shock it is to face when that person is gone. It is only then that we make that extra effort to see all the good in their lives, and in their hearts. All the beautiful attributes that we ignored or forgot can be remembered, but unfortunately, not shared with them. Michael, wherever you are, you must be feeling the global love pouring out to you, and we can all learn the importance of appreciating those in our own lives, right now, recognizing the good in them, expressing our caring and love, while it can still have an effect in their lives…we can bolster those who are good people yet have made some mistakes, who have tried their best but not lived up to what we “expected,” who have lived their lives a little (or a lot) differently than we have chosen to….they are still worthy of our kindness and respect….in fact, that very kindness and respect might just help them find their way as they struggle. For Michael, if that love and adoration that has pouring out these past several days had been expressed to him during his life, he might have been able to overcome his loneliness, his solitude, his confusion, or whatever else his tortured soul might have been experiencing. We may have had his talents and loving soul for much longer….the best parts of him might have felt freer to shine. Walter, thank you for reminding us of the importance of loving and appreciating in the now, and all the practical ways we can make sure that we can make this happen to those who are still with us, especially those we have withheld from, those we’ve let drift away from us, when we know in our hearts that these souls need our love, understanding and respect now more than ever. We still have the opportunity to give that gift, before it’s too late….a loving wake up call for us, and for them.
thank you for that eloquent and heartfelt response. i, too, had thought about what the consequences might have been had people transcended the circus and made greater efforts to extend love and compassion to him; indeed, he might have healed and become a great force for good on the planet…. the point being: if we pay attention to our loved ones now, while they’re still here, we, too, can enrich the relationships far beyond where they would have gone had we continued the status quo.
You’ve hit the nail on the head! Everything you say about appreciating our loved ones — family, friends — while they’re here is tantamount to not feeling the guilt and remorse once they’re gone. Unfortunately, sometimes the Here and Now are taken forgranted because, realistically, we can’t conceive of our “loved ones” NOT being here so we have the tendency to not always be loving, giving and unselfish, to not be argumentative, petty and abusive. That’s where we continually slip up. It’s not until the actual demise that the loss hits us like a brick building.
Therefore, we have to consciously remind ourselves of that and to re-visit our feelings, especially when we hear of someone’s death, whether in our personal lives or in our assessment of celebrity deaths. We then have to not only tell those who are important to us that we love them but also show them by little niceties we perform, by meaningful material tokens and by taking others’ feelings into consideration whether or not we’re physically with them.
As for Michael Jackson — indeed he most likely did not feel loved in life and certainly with his death, the “love” and celebration the public have for him are based on his status as a top-notch entertainer and not for the lost soul that he truly was.
thanks, sharon, for another spot on comment. with so many celebrity deaths having occurred recently, death has been brought to the forefront, and so the lesson of cherishing our loved ones while they’re here is multiplied… let’s hope we get the message and get better at extending love and gratitude to everyone, especially the loved ones in our lives.
For me, the shock of Michael Jackson’s death was a wake up call. As much as I respected him as an entertainer, as his life deteriorated, I did not try to look past his idiosyncrasies, I was turned off by the facial/skin reconstruction, I was quick to jump on the bandwagon when he was enmeshed with the child molestation charges…I didn’t cut him slack…I didn’t give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe that’s why his death is making me think and reflect much more than any other. It’s so easy to dwell on the negatives. It’s so easy to “see” what we want to see, and not what might be lying underneath. If any celebrity was truly a lost soul, surely it was him. His death has woken me up to the rather disconcerting judgment I find in myself. And surely if I can judge an entertainer so harshly during his troubled times and not wake up to the fact that there’s a human being inside, struggling at best, dying inside at worst, it makes me think really hard about what was inside me that allowed that judgment to run amuck. Perhaps this internal questioning might be happening to others on the planet. Although he retained a core of adoring fans his last years, for the most part, he seemed more ostracized than anything else, and as a result, he deteriorated more than anyone might have realized. Perhaps people will reevaluate their propensity to trash others, to focus on the negative, to let the “bad” overshadow or even obliterate the good. I hope Michael in his death will bring this lesson home to those of us who can now see that this tortured soul could surely have benefited from some kindness, some focused appreciation, some openness to the struggles inside. It certainly woke me up! To make a much more focused effort to look at ALL people differently, with more kindness, more compassion, more understanding, regardless of what we see on the surface. The world could use this shift, on a global level, and on a personal level. Perhaps Michael’s greatest “accomplishment” may well end up being a part of this wake up call, that we all need, in our interactions with those close to us, as well as those we observe from afar. From our closest loved ones, to our acquaintances, to those we work with, to those we pass on the street, or in an elevator, or anywhere else…all the way to those we watch on the news, here and in other countries….a better effort towards understanding and finding compassion is what might make this global mess settle down….it clearly must start with those closest to us, but needs to extend to all for it to really make a difference.
Walter,
This is wonderful! When I read it, I started to hear the song “Hey Jude” in my mind.
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