'When The Groove Is Dead And Gone, You Know That Love Survives ... So We Can Rock Forever On'

Michael Jackson's death has freed him now.

And us from our living mourning for the past two or so decades.

It was like watching someone slowly die and degenerate from a terminal disease -- but now all has been made whole. They don't typically show the state of those of people as they're dying, but we watched it unfold as each stranger year passed.

I feel a warm melancholy as I watch his performances in the early 80s. Music almost as essential to watch as to listen to.

All on his own, early 20s, full of an elegant self-confidence.

It's nice to be a 9-year-old kid when a definitive cultural moment arrives.

"Thriller."

It usurped my summer, 10-plus minute extended videos at a time.

Then he began his transformation ... and that's all need be said, now that he no longer lives.

And now, two and a half decades later, here are the tributes -- which from our generation can be told through music videos.

Once the tributes are done, I don't plan to watch any of the drama related to his death, both when he was alive and dead.

I am allowed freely to believe in what I remember on those summer nights of childhood, as we flipped the awkwardly large and cumbersome cable converter box remote (ironically still attched by a cord) to watch him perform daily eclipse's over MTV.

I really have missed that part of my life. I tried to moonwalk tonight. I think I did it.

It's strange how death brings these things to life.