On one of his last days, Joe Jackson heard his granddaughter tell a joke. He laughed. She said later it was the last time she ever heard that sound.
Her name is Paris Jackson, Michael Jackson’s only daughter. She was 20 years old, and she was holding her grandfather’s hand.
Joe was the father of the famous Jackson family. Born in Arkansas in 1928, he married a young woman named Katherine in 1949 and settled in Gary, Indiana, where the steel mills kept the town running. In the 1950s, he played guitar and chased his own music dream until he figured out his kids were the real talent and the Jackson 5 was born.
In his later years, Joe made his home in Las Vegas, and people around town knew him well. He’d sign autographs and stop to chat. One local said, “He always came to every event.”
One of his last public outings came in March 2018, at a gospel music awards show in Las Vegas.
By June, he was gravely ill. He went into the hospital with terminal cancer, reported to be pancreatic, and doctors told the family it couldn’t be treated.
His wife Katherine, then 88, stayed by his side while children and grandchildren started flying in.
His son Jermaine said the family had trouble finding out where Joe was and that their mother was “worried sick.” After a family meeting, they were reportedly let in to see him.
On June 24, a photo appeared on Joe’s Twitter account. It showed him in silhouette by the ocean at sunset, one hand on a rail.
The words under it spread around the world.
“I have seen more sunsets than I have left to see,” it said. “The sun rises when the time comes and whether you like it or not the sun sets when the time comes.”
Paris was quick to say her grandfather didn’t write it. “I’m not sure if he’s ever used this account,” she wrote. But to millions of strangers, the picture already felt like a goodbye.
Three days later, the news broke.
Jackson family patriarch Joe Jackson dead at 89
Joe died early on Wednesday, June 27, 2018, at a hospice in Las Vegas. He was 89.
His children put out a short statement saying they mourned “a man who sacrificed so much to give us the life and success we have today.”
Janet had already spoken up that same week. While accepting an award on stage, she thanked her “incredible father” and said he “drove me to be the best I can.”
Paris shared a photo of their hands together, with her hospital wristband showing on her arm. She called him “the legend that started it all” and wrote that their last moments together “were everything.”
And she added one more detail that fans held onto. Before he slipped away, she made him promise he’d come visit her.
Grandson Randy Jackson Jr. called Joe “the king that made everything possible.”
Tributes pour in for Joe Jackson
On July 2, the family laid him to rest in a private service at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. It’s the same cemetery where Michael lies.
Joe left behind Katherine, his eight living children with her, a daughter named Joh’Vonnie from another relationship and more than two dozen grandchildren.
The clip below shows that day at Forest Lawn.