I Don't Want to Say Goodbye
My friend is dead.
We met on our missions in Madrid. We were always in the choirs that our mission always had.
My friend is gone and I'm so mad. I'm so angry about it.
He was hilarious. He was smart and dynamic and interesting. He loved to read, and his Spanish was flawless. Flawless. We were in this dumb little club our mission had for the people from our city (Sandy). He wore two ties at once to mix up his dapper-quotient- it was the early 2000's and that was cool, then.
He told me once that he had decided that he was going to come home and be a plumber. I said, "That's a good job." He was so offended. It was so funny... He knew we knew each other pretty well by that point and I should want more for him than just a career. He was trying to get me angry but it backfired because I had met a family with a plumbing business that took really good care of them. He studied biomedical engineering and... I don't know how to accurately express it... He knew I knew he needed to do something with his brain that would advance the world in some way. And I did know that. He pointed to Hermana Faust and pulled her over (we were actually on these quarter-mile-long escalators in a metro station at the time, going to rehearsal or something) and told her I was "Happy!" for him, and she played right into his hand. She was incensed! "What are you talking about! You have to do something amazing!" When he got mad at me for being happy for him I laughed so hard. Looking back on it I'm honored that he trusted me to know what he was capable of. And not just because he's gone.
Our friend Joa came to visit from Spain once and he came over to the house with his girlfriend. I was so excited to see him. He was thin, though, and I teased him a little. I was surprised when he didn't laugh. Fast forward 8 years and he's gone because his heart stopped during treatment for drug addiction.
And I am so sorry, Mike. I hate that I hit a soft spot and we weren't close enough anymore for you to tell me what was wrong with what I said.
I hate so much that your son doesn't have you. I hate it more than I can say. I am so so mad. I hate that you were working on fixing the things that your addiction had stolen from you, your wife, your son, and the rest of your life.
I want to scream because I just found out that until this week you worked with one of my other best friends from the pageant part of my life, and I could have seen you and hugged you and laughed with you and gotten caught up. You could have told me anything- you might not have, but you could have- and I would have just been happy for you because I know how capable you are.
were.
You would have wanted me to be mad at you for the stuff you were mad at yourself about, but I would have accepted you, and been pained for the things that pained you. I would have just loved you like I always did.
We were hanging out at his house one night in... it would have been, I guess 2008, and there was just a moment when we looked at each other and sortof considered whether we were going to be attracted to one another, and just decided that we were not. We had a gorgeously mutually supportive relationship, and it was perfect. It was exactly what it should have been, and we didn't want to change it. Not out of fear of messing it up or anything, we just weren't that for each other, and we knew it. No discussion, it just was. I wish I could ask him if he remembers that.
He was in my ward when I met Hyrum and we got engaged. We would check in with each other on Sundays about who he was dating (I had moved into the ward because I was already dating Hyrum), and what he was reading, and what we had heard about people from the mission.
Once when we were in a choir rehearsal early on in my mission (he was "older" than me in the mission), he made a comment about the music or something and used the phrase "Philly Cheesesteak Blunt" to describe something. I turned around- my buttoned-up sensibilities sparked. I said, "Do you know what a blunt is?" Trying to actually say, "Those are words that a missionary should not say!"
And he looks at me suspicious and guarded, and says, "Dooo you know what a blunt is?" Like he was saying, "Yes, I know what it is. You don't seem to be the kind of person who knows what that is. You are a sister missionary, after all. And one of the more buttoned-up ones, to ademas." The innocence of the exchange is, in itself, so funny now. I can still see his face saying it. That memory was so pleasant until now.
Its been dripped on, now, with hot grief.
I know every soul is valuable. I know every person is amazing. And I know people have to die, and I'm glad, like his brother said, that it wasn't his addiction that took him. But it shouldn't have been him. I ache that it was him. I am strobing through the phases of loss at having learned this, this morning.
Our friend Garret from the mission died several years ago. It was tragic in a different way. Nobody likes it when their friends die, and I just I don't want to finish writing because then something that happened after Mike died will have ended. Things will be moving on without him, and that sucks. It sucks.
This sucks.
I wish I could fix it. I wish I could just be angry enough that it would bring him back. I wish the injustice, and the love that we feel about these losses could right it. I'm sure that his family feels that way, but that they have been feeling that way about his addiction for a long time.
In short spurts, I'm glad that he isn't struggling anymore, but then my beliefs about the-same-spirit-that-inhabits-a-body-in-this-life-is-the-same-without-its-body (Alms34:34) and I think that he is still fighting with his addiction on the other side. I am glad, still, though, because he was on the path of repairing his body and his family, and so I know the worst is over. Also, I know that "the Lord looketh upon the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7 KJV) But now his son will never know him. He will have no memories of this dynamic, exciting, hysterical, supportive, deep thinker, who was his dad.
I pray that his son is like him, and gets to have someone- anyone- in his life who is like Mike. I pray that knowing about his father with bring him pride instead of pain.
I pray for his ex-wife, with whom he was trying to repair "things", finds peace. This is unthinkable.
Dear Mike, Godspeed, my dear brother.
We met on our missions in Madrid. We were always in the choirs that our mission always had.
My friend is gone and I'm so mad. I'm so angry about it.
He was hilarious. He was smart and dynamic and interesting. He loved to read, and his Spanish was flawless. Flawless. We were in this dumb little club our mission had for the people from our city (Sandy). He wore two ties at once to mix up his dapper-quotient- it was the early 2000's and that was cool, then.
He told me once that he had decided that he was going to come home and be a plumber. I said, "That's a good job." He was so offended. It was so funny... He knew we knew each other pretty well by that point and I should want more for him than just a career. He was trying to get me angry but it backfired because I had met a family with a plumbing business that took really good care of them. He studied biomedical engineering and... I don't know how to accurately express it... He knew I knew he needed to do something with his brain that would advance the world in some way. And I did know that. He pointed to Hermana Faust and pulled her over (we were actually on these quarter-mile-long escalators in a metro station at the time, going to rehearsal or something) and told her I was "Happy!" for him, and she played right into his hand. She was incensed! "What are you talking about! You have to do something amazing!" When he got mad at me for being happy for him I laughed so hard. Looking back on it I'm honored that he trusted me to know what he was capable of. And not just because he's gone.
Our friend Joa came to visit from Spain once and he came over to the house with his girlfriend. I was so excited to see him. He was thin, though, and I teased him a little. I was surprised when he didn't laugh. Fast forward 8 years and he's gone because his heart stopped during treatment for drug addiction.
And I am so sorry, Mike. I hate that I hit a soft spot and we weren't close enough anymore for you to tell me what was wrong with what I said.
I hate so much that your son doesn't have you. I hate it more than I can say. I am so so mad. I hate that you were working on fixing the things that your addiction had stolen from you, your wife, your son, and the rest of your life.
I want to scream because I just found out that until this week you worked with one of my other best friends from the pageant part of my life, and I could have seen you and hugged you and laughed with you and gotten caught up. You could have told me anything- you might not have, but you could have- and I would have just been happy for you because I know how capable you are.
were.
You would have wanted me to be mad at you for the stuff you were mad at yourself about, but I would have accepted you, and been pained for the things that pained you. I would have just loved you like I always did.
We were hanging out at his house one night in... it would have been, I guess 2008, and there was just a moment when we looked at each other and sortof considered whether we were going to be attracted to one another, and just decided that we were not. We had a gorgeously mutually supportive relationship, and it was perfect. It was exactly what it should have been, and we didn't want to change it. Not out of fear of messing it up or anything, we just weren't that for each other, and we knew it. No discussion, it just was. I wish I could ask him if he remembers that.
He was in my ward when I met Hyrum and we got engaged. We would check in with each other on Sundays about who he was dating (I had moved into the ward because I was already dating Hyrum), and what he was reading, and what we had heard about people from the mission.
Once when we were in a choir rehearsal early on in my mission (he was "older" than me in the mission), he made a comment about the music or something and used the phrase "Philly Cheesesteak Blunt" to describe something. I turned around- my buttoned-up sensibilities sparked. I said, "Do you know what a blunt is?" Trying to actually say, "Those are words that a missionary should not say!"
And he looks at me suspicious and guarded, and says, "Dooo you know what a blunt is?" Like he was saying, "Yes, I know what it is. You don't seem to be the kind of person who knows what that is. You are a sister missionary, after all. And one of the more buttoned-up ones, to ademas." The innocence of the exchange is, in itself, so funny now. I can still see his face saying it. That memory was so pleasant until now.
Its been dripped on, now, with hot grief.
I know every soul is valuable. I know every person is amazing. And I know people have to die, and I'm glad, like his brother said, that it wasn't his addiction that took him. But it shouldn't have been him. I ache that it was him. I am strobing through the phases of loss at having learned this, this morning.
Our friend Garret from the mission died several years ago. It was tragic in a different way. Nobody likes it when their friends die, and I just I don't want to finish writing because then something that happened after Mike died will have ended. Things will be moving on without him, and that sucks. It sucks.
This sucks.
I wish I could fix it. I wish I could just be angry enough that it would bring him back. I wish the injustice, and the love that we feel about these losses could right it. I'm sure that his family feels that way, but that they have been feeling that way about his addiction for a long time.
In short spurts, I'm glad that he isn't struggling anymore, but then my beliefs about the-same-spirit-that-inhabits-a-body-in-this-life-is-the-same-without-its-body (Alms34:34) and I think that he is still fighting with his addiction on the other side. I am glad, still, though, because he was on the path of repairing his body and his family, and so I know the worst is over. Also, I know that "the Lord looketh upon the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7 KJV) But now his son will never know him. He will have no memories of this dynamic, exciting, hysterical, supportive, deep thinker, who was his dad.
I pray that his son is like him, and gets to have someone- anyone- in his life who is like Mike. I pray that knowing about his father with bring him pride instead of pain.
I pray for his ex-wife, with whom he was trying to repair "things", finds peace. This is unthinkable.
Dear Mike, Godspeed, my dear brother.
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