I was born in the year of Thriller, into the MTV generation.  I spent hours trying to moonwalk across the kitchen floor and dancing up and down the hall to Smooth Criminal and Billie Jean.

Of course, this was twenty years ago.  When MTV still played videos, and the Sony Walkman was cutting edge technology. Before vinyl went vintage.

My brother, younger by five years, remembers none of this.  To him, Michael Jackson is synonymous with pedophile, plastic surgery and poor parenting.  He is unable to appreciate the music of the early years through the din of scandal.

My generation watched Michael Jackson rise like a rocket ship, and then fall like a comet, burning brightly all the way to the ground.  And today we mourn not just the King of Pop but the little piece of our childhood that died with him.