Holly Terrace Sunflowers

 
The beautiful little girl with pigtails jumped from her mother’s arms
with glee and ran to the door of Holly Terrace,
eagerly peering through the crack.
Just at the end of the long corridor,
if you looked just right, you could see a noble, marble crypt.
The sun was hitting the Ascension stained glass window
and the entire scene was filled with glorious light.
Many, many more bright and glowing sunflowers
adorned this kings resting place.
A beautiful breath taking sight and outside was a
veritable forest of sunflowers
lined up by the doors to the Kings resting place.

Suddenly she turned to look at her mother with a
shocked and stricken look on her face shrieked,
“I can’t see him! I can’t see him! He isn’t there, Mommy!!
I want to see him!!

Why can’t I see him? Where did he go mommy?”

She began to sob, uncontrollable, inconsolable, heartbroken sobs.

She ran back to her mother’s comforting and safe arms and
held on tight and just cried.

The adults all stood there unable to breath, unable to speak,
grappling for the words

to try to console and explain… yet there were none.

Yes this little angelic baby she said it all.

We can’t see him, our King, we can’t see him.

Why did he have to go?
Our hearts are broken still.

Suddenly a grown up notices and points to a discovery,
back inside the sunflower forest just resting at the base of the sunflowers
is a tiny angel someone has left for Michael, our King.
It rests and sleeps guarding the King’s door.
The child is consoled at last and content
to wander in the sunflower forest but continually,
apprehensively looking toward the door
where her King can not be seen.

How do you explain death to a child?

Her mother says “She doesn’t understand.
She LOVES Michael Jackson and

she sees him sing and dance on TV.
She can’t understand why she can’t see him now.”

We the adults grasp at answers as well and can only nod our heads.
Yes how do you explain the death of Michael Jackson?
Unfathomable.

Forever in our hearts.

How strange that all these tears
could not wash away the hurt!

Then one thought of love pierced my bitterness.
I remembered you in the sunlight,
with a smile as sweet as May wine.
A tear of gratitude started to fall,
and miraculously, you were back.
Soft fingers touched my check,
and you bent over for a kiss.

“Why have you come?” I whispered.

“To wipe away your last tear,” you replied.
“It was the one you saved for me.”

Excerpt from The Last Tear
by
Michael Jackson, from his book “Dancing The Dream”

LOVE has the FINAL Word

There I sat at the doctor's office waiting my turn. Nothing major being done but still a bit unnerving. I had prayed and asked friends to pray for me ultimately always turning to my God, the Lord Jesus Christ for protection and covering in all things. I was at peace and knew I'd be fine but still there was that nagging anxiousness. I picked up a random magazine as they asked me to walk to the back to prepare me for surgery. They mentioned there would be a wait and I might like to read something. I flipped through the pages at first not interested really but thinking more of what lay ahead for me. I have been blessed with good health. As always in every doctor's office time seemed endless as I waited. I began thinking about anything and everything else and of course as always my mind ran to Michael Jackson, his life, his legacy, his music, how he changed the world with his love. Then once again back to my certain reality where I sat waiting. I began passively, off and on, reading each article of the magazine in my lap to fill the time. I looked up at the clock over head and 2 hours had passed and I was still patiently waiting. I returned to my magazine flipped the page and there was an article "Adopting at 55", I immediately thought "How brave this lady is" and began reading. I was enthralled by this woman's spirit. It seemed so familiar. Yet I was just thinking about Michael Jackson and the love he shared with the world.

Then all anxiousness was gone. Instead a feeling of complete reassurance filled me as God through Michael Jackson shared yet another lesson of love. I smiled as I felt once again Michael's global love touch my heart as I read the words:

"When we met, my future daughters spoke only a few words of English, and I spoke almost nothing of their language, Amharic. So I opened the iTunes folder on my laptop, and though I’d brought African music to play, it turned out what they loved best was Michael Jackson. Then we started dancing.

I learned it’s not that complicated, spending five days in the company of children with whom your common vocabulary is perhaps five words, if what those children need is to be held and loved. For five days we danced, drew pictures, kicked around a soccer ball, sang songs. We played with the babies. The girls braided my hair, unbraided it, braided it again. But they were also happy to do nothing more than sit on my lap, so long as my arms were wrapped around them. Never, in all those five days I was with them, did they fight with each other or cry or complain, until the night before I left. We slept in one small single bed together that night. In the morning when I had to go home without them, Birtukan flung herself on the ground and cried so violently, her whole body shook. When I held her one last time before leaving, to say good-bye, I could feel her heart racing and her whole body trembling."



Michael Jackson has touched places on this earth and reached people on this earth that no other human has been able to touch or reach. He continues even now after his passing to globally share his legacy of love with all mankind, every nation and every creed. I read this article and no longer had an anxious thought about what lay ahead for me. God has a plan for all of us. For some it is bigger as it was for Michael. Chosen from the womb to reach the world with his love, music and creative genius. For others it is small but no less important. I love the words of Martin Luther King Jr. as shared by his son at Michael Jackson's Memorial, "That in life one must discover what their calling is, and when they do, they must do their jobs so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do them no better." He constantly challenged us to become our best by stating, "That if you can not be pine on the top of the hill, why just be a shrub in the valley? But be the best little shrub on the side of the road. Be a bush if you can not be a tree. If you can not be the highway then be a trail. If you can not be the sun, just be a star. For it isn't by size that you win or you fail. You've got to be the best of what you are." Michael Jackson was truly the best of what he was. Finally Martin Luther King Jr. said "That in life if it falls ever your lot to be a street sweeper you must sweep streets so well, in fact you must sweep streets like Beethoven composed music. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets like Raphael painted pictures. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth would have to pause and say "Here lived a great street sweeper that did his job well."



Each of us has a calling. A calling an assignment from God. Michael's calling was huge, globally huge yet he walked in humility and grace. He endured so much persecution and pain in his life, yet continued to reach out and love others. Reading about the language of love Michael Jackson's music enabled this adopting mother and these Ethiopian girls to share, I recalled the story of the time Michael sat with his mother crying about the starving and dying children in Africa. Michael made a promise to his mother that one day he would do something about that.

Oh!! How he did! He fed the hungry, provided medical care all over the world, to more than we will ever know. As I read this article I see his inspiration around the world still spreading over a year after his death, and know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Michael Jackson's love of children, Africa, the hurting and needy still lives on. It lives on in those he has inspired. It lives on in his children as Prince, God bless him, continues to carry on his father's legacy as he works in a warehouse filling boxes of food for "Children's Hunger Fund", fulfilling his promise he made at the Grammys when he said, "Through all his songs his message was simple,"LOVE". We will continue to spread his message and help the world."






As my very dear friend, Bonnie, from MJ-Upbeat, states
"LOVE has the FINAL Word"

Copy and paste links. Sorry they are not embedded.

You can read the entire article in MORE magazine September issue:
Adopting at 55 by Joyce Maynard

http://www.more.com/2051/24763-adopting-at-55

If you feel you would like to help out Prince Jackson and also follow in Michael's Legacy of Love and donate to the Children's Hunger Fund please go to this link:

http://www.chfus.org/en/component/donation/