When I dropped the kids off at school this morning, the death of Michael Jackson was the big buzz around the playground and in the hallways.  I don't know if I ended up fielding a lot of questions about the news because I am an American (and thus a compatriot of the late pop star) -- or if it was just that heavy on everyone's minds... But it was interesting to observe the buzz.

The death of someone like Michael Jackson is an fascinating opportunity to explore our own mortality.  It's an intellectually-jarring event -- like, "Huh? Wow. I didn't expect that to happen today."  But it's not particularly emotional.  That is to say, he was a person who I've never met or interacted with -- nor is he even a person with whom anyone that I've ever known has had any kind of personal interaction.  And even his public role was not one of vast personal significance (though I can think of political figures and even baseball players whose deaths have emotionally impacted me, without ever even knowing them)... But the intellectual impact of the event is enough (especially without the emotional impact to confuse things) to really make you understand how fragile and unpredictable life is.  To realize how many lives I've already out-lived.  To wonder how many more will pass on before my own time comes...

What's strange is that Michael Jackson's death is the third such event that I've experience this week.

First, I found out that the kitchen contracting business who managed our recent renovations just went (apparently) belly-up.  Their e-mail addresses don't work anymore.  Their phone numbers don't work anymore.  And their shop itself is locked and darkened (according to one of the subcontractors, who alerted us to the situation -- panicked and looking for any clue he can find to track down the people from the business which still owes him €9000.  In fact, the business still owes us a couple-hundred euros (refunds of cost overages) and a handle to one of the cabinets that we ordered through them -- so I have some reason for anger and disappointment myself, that they would run away from their problems in the middle of the night like that... But, to be honest, my main emotion is one of relief -- that it didn't happen five months ago, right after we made our down-payment for the project and right before the actual work on our house began).  Relief and wonder at that whole "fragility of life" thing.  It really can be scary to realize how close to disaster and ruin we all can be, at any and every moment of the day.

Then, secondly, our family received a letter in the mail informing us that our dentist had died in a mountain-climbing accident in the Himalayas.  Granted, it was our dentist -- not someone to whom a significant emotional attachment is made.  But still, it was weird and sad to realize that suddenly, he was taken away from us without any warning and without any reason.

And now, this morning, we hear about Michael Jackson.  If anything, my emotional reaction to the news of his death was one of... how do I say it?  Relief?  I don't know.  Kind of like what it talks about in Ecclesiastes 7.  I have a sense that Michael Jackson's life was hard -- that he was somehow emotionally-tortured throughout his life.  And I have this vague desire the he could somehow "rest in peace."  Again, I feel a little bit sad.  But also this sense of strangeness from surviving.  Does that make sense to anyone else?

Certainly, my emotions have been affected by these three events from this week... But it's more that my mind is spinning around the implications.  I'm thinking a lot.  Wondering a lot.  Praying a lot... I guess this mortality thing is mighty strong stuff, isn't it?