donât you want to see Prince and Paris grow up?
MJ: Yes, I do.
SB: Donât you want to see their children?
MJ: I just donât want to look old and start forgetting. I want to always be youthful and have the energy to run around and play hide and seek, which is one of my favorite games. I wanted to play it so badly at your house the last time we were there âcause you have a nice big house for it. Um, I hate to see people grow old, Shmuley.
Yes, we could talk about hide and seek, but not when Michael was discussing the possibility of his suicide. So I brought him back again to the possibility of growing old yet remaining youthful and vibrant.
SB: Havenât you seen people who grew old but kept their youthfulness. They behaved like they were still young?
MJ: Yeah, when they have a youthful heart, I love that. When they start to forget and wrinkle, [and] their body parts break down, it hurts me. Or when they get. . .
SB: Who has that happened to among the people youâve loved? Does your mother grow old on you? Your father? Any entertainers that you know in the industry who grow old?
MJ: Yeah, people I love very much that died and I donât understand why. I was in love with this man, in love with him. And he was my friend, Fred Astaire, and I donât understand. You see Fred, since I was a little, a kid, Fred Astaire lived very close to our house and he used to talk to me all the time when I was little and you know he would teach me things, he would tell me you know, I was gonna be a big star and all this stuff that I didnât even think about when I was little. And to see him dance in movies, I was like amazed. I didnât know anybody could move so beautifully, you know? And, um, when I see him get to the point. . . One day he said to me, âYou know Michael, I, if I was to do one spin right now, I would fall flat on my face. My equilibrium is totally gone.â And when heâd answer the door when Iâd come to his house, this is how he [walked], just like this Shmuley. Little tiny steps and it broke my heart. That hurts me, and the day he died, it killed me, it killed me. It destroyed me. And thatâs. . .
SB: But what happened to [Princess] Diana, that was a great tragedy, Michael.
I was trying to remind him that no matter how painful it was to grow old, dying a young, tragic death was much worse.
MJ: That was a great tragedy. That killed me. That killed everybody, I think.
SB: Itâs not good to die young. It may make you into a myth, Michael. But life is too precious, no?
MJ: Life is very beautiful and precious.
SB: So you think one day youâre going to become just a myth.
MJ: See, why canât we be like the trees? That come, you know, they lose their leaves in the winter, and come back as beautiful all over again in the spring, you know? Itâs a sense of immortality to them, and the Bible says man was meant for immortality. But through sin and all this, we get death.
I should have said at this point that the Bible, in Deuteronomy, indeed compares humans to the trees of the field, and developed the metaphor. A tree may eventually crumble and die, but it sows the seeds for the next generation of trees and plant life. It lives on through its offspring and through its oxygenation of the air, in other words, what it does for the environment, what it does for others. So too, we may die, but our good deeds live on. Humans may not be immortal, but they exist forever through the people they love and through the good deeds they do. But for some reason, even though I have written extensively on the subject, I didnât think of it.
SB: But maybe you go to a different place, to a higher place, and your soul, being suddenly unrestricted, can actually move closer to the people. Think about it. God is here right now, Michael. We both believe that, even though you canât touch him or feel him. Are the souls of our loved ones very different?
MJ: I would
MJ: Yes, I do.
SB: Donât you want to see their children?
MJ: I just donât want to look old and start forgetting. I want to always be youthful and have the energy to run around and play hide and seek, which is one of my favorite games. I wanted to play it so badly at your house the last time we were there âcause you have a nice big house for it. Um, I hate to see people grow old, Shmuley.
Yes, we could talk about hide and seek, but not when Michael was discussing the possibility of his suicide. So I brought him back again to the possibility of growing old yet remaining youthful and vibrant.
SB: Havenât you seen people who grew old but kept their youthfulness. They behaved like they were still young?
MJ: Yeah, when they have a youthful heart, I love that. When they start to forget and wrinkle, [and] their body parts break down, it hurts me. Or when they get. . .
SB: Who has that happened to among the people youâve loved? Does your mother grow old on you? Your father? Any entertainers that you know in the industry who grow old?
MJ: Yeah, people I love very much that died and I donât understand why. I was in love with this man, in love with him. And he was my friend, Fred Astaire, and I donât understand. You see Fred, since I was a little, a kid, Fred Astaire lived very close to our house and he used to talk to me all the time when I was little and you know he would teach me things, he would tell me you know, I was gonna be a big star and all this stuff that I didnât even think about when I was little. And to see him dance in movies, I was like amazed. I didnât know anybody could move so beautifully, you know? And, um, when I see him get to the point. . . One day he said to me, âYou know Michael, I, if I was to do one spin right now, I would fall flat on my face. My equilibrium is totally gone.â And when heâd answer the door when Iâd come to his house, this is how he [walked], just like this Shmuley. Little tiny steps and it broke my heart. That hurts me, and the day he died, it killed me, it killed me. It destroyed me. And thatâs. . .
SB: But what happened to [Princess] Diana, that was a great tragedy, Michael.
I was trying to remind him that no matter how painful it was to grow old, dying a young, tragic death was much worse.
MJ: That was a great tragedy. That killed me. That killed everybody, I think.
SB: Itâs not good to die young. It may make you into a myth, Michael. But life is too precious, no?
MJ: Life is very beautiful and precious.
SB: So you think one day youâre going to become just a myth.
MJ: See, why canât we be like the trees? That come, you know, they lose their leaves in the winter, and come back as beautiful all over again in the spring, you know? Itâs a sense of immortality to them, and the Bible says man was meant for immortality. But through sin and all this, we get death.
I should have said at this point that the Bible, in Deuteronomy, indeed compares humans to the trees of the field, and developed the metaphor. A tree may eventually crumble and die, but it sows the seeds for the next generation of trees and plant life. It lives on through its offspring and through its oxygenation of the air, in other words, what it does for the environment, what it does for others. So too, we may die, but our good deeds live on. Humans may not be immortal, but they exist forever through the people they love and through the good deeds they do. But for some reason, even though I have written extensively on the subject, I didnât think of it.
SB: But maybe you go to a different place, to a higher place, and your soul, being suddenly unrestricted, can actually move closer to the people. Think about it. God is here right now, Michael. We both believe that, even though you canât touch him or feel him. Are the souls of our loved ones very different?
MJ: I would