had levi stubbs the four tops funeral a
few years ago here smokey had all of the
Motown recording artists to come in to
stand at the casket and I looked in I
saw in walkers and and gray hair and no
hair and I kept looking at them and
looking at smokey and I said I want what
you drinking and evening give Smokey
Robinson a hand he'll be followed by The
Clark Sisters some about eight years old
and I'm outside and I'm playing with my
neighborhood friends second and Phoebe
and Ali and we shooting marbles cuz it
was in a time when kids were able to
play outside you know so I don't even
know if the boys know what that is
anymore but Richard Ross another one of
our friends came around and there's a
new guy with him and you introduced him
he said this is Cecil so we all you know
like boys do we started playing and
after a while we went around to see
seesaws new house because they had just
moved to Detroit from Buffalo and we go
in and we're walking around the house
look at it and I'm seeing stuff that I'd
never seen because what nearly like my
house cuz you know somebody broke in my
house they better be bringing something
but uh anyway we walk around the house
and and I hear music the piano being
played and this voice that sounds like a
little girl singing and I go and look in
that room and I see you and you're there
and you you're singing and that was my
first meeting and my first sight of you
and from that moment on almost we have
been so so close and so tight and I
didn't know especially this soon that I
was going to be having to say goodbye to
you farewell or whatever we've seen
everybody all the people that I
mentioned earlier pass on and go and we
talked about it many times how we were
the two who were who were left out of
all our neighborhood friends we were the
longest ones we weren't the only two
left we were the longest ones so now my
longest friend has gone home and you
want to be with our father like we all
have to do one of these days and I know
you're up there and you're celebrating
with your family and with all of our
neighborhood friends who have gone and
you're gonna be one of the featured
voices and the choir of angels because
you know you'd have to be
I also know you know I've been on the
road and I've been watching the
celebration of your life from everywhere
and I've been doing interviews from
everywhere from all over the world that
the last one I did was from Brazil and
the station that I was talking on
covered all of South America so the
world is celebrating you then the world
is mourning you and the world is gonna
miss you and I know that I'm gonna miss
you so much because I miss our talks and
we would talk for hours sometimes just
talking about really anything we want to
talk about or nothing and the last
conversation we had you were telling me
that you give it to your movie and you
want to know who I wanted to play me so
I told you I was gonna leave that up to
you cuz you you you were so special and
a while back we did a mini-series on the
temptations life and for that movie I I
did a school I did the school for the
movie and I had to write a song for
Melvin Franklin who was another one of
our close close people and I'm sure he
won't mind if I sing a little bit of it
for you because it fits you so perfectly
in my life really gonna miss you
[Music]
it's really gonna be different without
you for the rest of my life gonna be
thinking about you I miss you I miss you
[Music]
[Applause]