MJonmind, I too had read that Michael didn't want to die like John Lennon and I remember reading somewhere back in the '90s that the explanation for Michael writing "1998" beside his autograph was related to that. Someone had supposedly told him that he had to write that (1998 - the year he would turn 40, same age John Lennon died at) in order to live past that age. But who knows if there is any truth to that explanation.