It was December 1997, and Joseph and Concetta DeLisi were flying home for the holidays. Well, home to family, anyway. The couple boarded an American Airlines flight at New York’s JFK airport, headed for LAX, to spend Christmas with their daughter and her family in Los Angeles.
They were sitting back in coach like everybody else.
A few hours into the flight, Concetta started to feel sick. Then she fainted and ended up in the coach aisle.
Her grandson, Chris Cantore, told the rest of the story years later for NBC 7 San Diego. And the next part is why he wanted to write it down.
“When she awoke, hovering above and holding out his hand, the King of Pop,” he wrote.
Michael Jackson was on the same plane. Of all the people who could have been leaning over her at that moment, it was him.
As Chris told it: “Are you OK?” Michael Jackson asked, in his delicate voice.
According to her grandson, Michael stayed right there with her. “He helped Grandma up, and invited my grandparents to join him in first class,” Chris wrote.
So the DeLisis spent the rest of the trip up front with Michael. At some point he signed the first-class menu for them, a keepsake they could actually hold on to.
You’d think that would be the end of it. A kind moment on a plane, a signature and a story to tell the neighbors back in New York.
It wasn’t.
“Upon landing, Michael offered to drive my grandparents from LAX to my folks’ house in the San Fernando Valley,” Chris wrote.
Getting Michael Jackson across Los Angeles without being spotted took some work. His security team set up three limo changes along the way to stay ahead of photographers. On the 405 freeway, Michael put on “Men in Black,” and the three of them watched it together in the back of the car.
Meanwhile, their daughter had no idea any of this was happening. She was just waiting for her parents to arrive for Christmas.
Then the doorbell rang.
Chris described the moment like this: “my mom, unaware of the preceding events, opened the door to find her parents standing on the front stoop with Michael Jackson holding their bags.”
Michael didn’t hand over the luggage and leave, either. “He entered the house and stood in front of the Christmas tree,” Chris wrote.
Joseph, the grandfather, later said Michael loved the tree’s beauty. He also said Michael loved the “family spirit” he felt in their home.
Their daughter was so stunned that she never even took a picture. She did think fast enough to invite Michael to her husband’s work Christmas party. He politely said no, got back into his limo and headed for Neverland.
That’s why there’s no photo of that night. All the family has is a signed menu and the memory of a story that ended at their own front door.
A fan channel later posted a video named after Chris’s story, if you’d like to take a look.
A fan video named after the grandson’s story
Chris has shared it so the rest of us could hear it. His grandparents flew west for a quiet Christmas with their daughter, and for one evening in 1997, Michael Jackson stood by the family’s Christmas tree, admiring it with them.