Michael

For the second time in less than a year, I am faced with losing a friend to cancer. To call him just a friend is an injustice. We have been through hell and back together more than a couple of times. Both there for each other when we each decided to put down the bottle and other things. Both spending hours practicing the greatest passion that we shared. Hours spent in his basement trying to perfect a sound that would make us stand out from the crowd. We are brothers. I love this man with all my heart. And to say that it will hurt to have him leave us is another understatement.

We have known each other for over twenty years. We met at a gathering of paralegals at a symposium on techniques of legal research. He wasn’t as in love with the law as I was. He looked at it as a way to pay the bills until he signed a contract with some record company or another. We had known each other’s names through the music grapevine, but had never met until that day. He told me he was looking for another job, because the firm he was with was looking to cutback on staffing. I told him I could put a word in for him. He was hired two weeks later. We spent very few days without seeing each other for the next 12 years.

We are the typical odd couple. He, not at home in a suit and tie, always seemed rumpled and out of place. I, on the other hand, was known to be a bit of a clothes horse…a closet full of suits, tailor made shirts, and silk ties. But, there was this shared passion for music that made us tight very early on. Once we started playing together, things just became complete.

He dated the same woman for over ten years. Married her. They have a daughter that just turned two this past May. She is the spitting image of her daddy. Red hair and beautiful green eyes. I have seen her twice. Both times, she melted my heart with a smile that she got from her mother and the eyes of her daddy. I failed at marriage twice. I have no children. I think that fact hurts him just as much as it does me. He is the first person who ever really saw the good part of me. He has told me for years that I am a better person then my life was prepared for. He says that circumstances have torn holes in me, but have failed to take away the true spirit that breaths in my soul. I never understood that until recently. I have started to find that part of me and I have him and one other person to thank for that. They both have seen something that I have stared for years in a mirror trying to find. And because of them, I will continue to search for him and bring him out for as long as I walk this Earth.

At the end of my drinking career, he helped me walk a better life path, while his was still rocky. He told me daily how proud he was of me to have the strength to walk away. He wanted that strength. Just couldn’t find it until his marriage. Since that day, he has led an amazing life. And becoming a father only brightened the gold that surrounds his heart. He is a man with more care in him than anyone I have ever known. A gentleness that has comforted so many of us that have been lucky enough to call him a friend.

Talking to him today and finding out the true nature of his reasoning for me to come to him for some music and a visit, I was struck by something that rocked me more than the news of the timetable the doctors have put his life on. With all that he has on his plate, his concern today was for me. He apologized for holding on for over a year that he was sick. He didn’t want me to worry about something that I have no control over. He knows I have that as a terrible habit. He only told me today because of a discussion that we had over the weekend and the news that he received today that he will return to the hospital this Friday for a treatment that will possibly give him a little more time. His concern through most of the day was for me. For my life. And for what had been happening to it for months.

He said he could hear the change in my voice. That since early in the year, he knew that I was holding on to something that was very important to me. He said that he would hang up the phone after talking to me and sit to cry over the fact that he sensed his friend was really going to be okay, after months of worrying that I would not be. He feared for my sobriety. He feared that I had given up hope. He feared that I had decided that my life was coming to a close and that I had decided that there was no sense in trying to search for anything that made me happy. And for those things, he also cried.

What he told me today was that he realized that his friend was coming back. That I was returning to the person I was when he knew me best. When I was happy. And to be able to come to that without alcohol or music in my life anymore made it even more special to him. He knows me. He knows that for most of my life those two things were a big part of the center of me. One in a bad way, the other in a very good way. He told me that he sensed something in me had changed, but wasn’t sure what it was. He only knew that he was glad for whatever it was.

When I finally told him what it was that was effecting me, he was all questions. He wanted to know everything. He wanted to hear every detail and was a little disappointed that at the time, there really wasn’t any. What had me coming out of the cave I had been living in for so long was a dream. Just a thought of a possibility. That’s all. But, he told me back then…in March or April…that if I held on, sometimes dreams do come true.

I spoke to him this past weekend. I told him that it appeared that the dream was now over. That the things I thought I saw were not going to materialize. That I had gone as far out as I could and that I had just missed my target. I told him that I had never committed to anything in my life as I had for this dream. But, as with prayers that appear unanswered, sometimes it’s just that for all our effort…the answer is no. He cried on the phone. He told me that day that he was sorry to hear it, but that he hoped that it wouldn’t change what I was becoming…or returning to. That I had to keep walking the path I was on, with my head up, and the belief that I could make a difference. I quickly and without real commitment, told him I agreed.

Today he told me the truth about his situation. He told me that he was okay. He had no regrets. He said, initially, that he only wanted one thing from me. For me to come to Philly and do it one more time. Create some magic just one more time. It’s been a very long time since I have tried to do that. But, he has some things that he has written that he wants to put down so that his daughter can hear what made her daddy smile almost as much as she does. He has created these things for her. And he wants to make sure that she gets them someday, after he is gone. I told him that I would be honored. Time and place was all I needed.

Later in the day, he called me again. He said he had one more thing. He told me that it would not be easy, but it was important to him. He said that he had spent the better part of the afternoon thinking about this…about my situation…about my dream. The fact that faced with what he is faced with and him spending some of his last hours thinking about me tells you exactly what kind of man this is. He told me that no matter what, I wasn’t to lose sight of this dream. He asked me if the dream made me happy. I told him that it did. He asked me if there was anything on this planet that meant as much to me as the object of my dream. I told him there wasn’t. He asked me if I thought that I would ever see the likes of this dream again. I told him I did not. He was silent for a good minute. Both of us just sitting there, hours apart, with phones to our ears. And then he said, “Don’t give up!” I told him that he didn’t understand. That insurmountable circumstances had all but put this dream to bed. He said he didn’t care about all that and that I shouldn’t either. He said that he waited to long to hear the voice he hears now…a voice that reminds him of a man he used to know so well. A voice that disappeared and became someone that he still loved like a brother, but felt he didn’t know anymore. He said he didn’t know for a very long time what it was that had started to bring his friend back, but he was grateful for it. He said that he prayed to God that whatever it was, that it would continue to do it’s good work. I told him that I thought that would be the case, no matter the circumstances. He asked me how I knew that. I told him, it was because for all the people I knew, this person reminded me of him. The heart. The caring. The unselfish nature of feelings. And that, no matter the obstacle, I knew that there was a general compassion here that was responsible for a lot of what was happening to me.

We ended our talking today with text messages while I was sitting at a workstation preparing for my overnight fun at work. He told me that giving up on this dream is the only thing that would disappoint him more than me not coming to see him. I told him that I couldn’t promise anything. That for the good of all involved, I had to consider letting go. He told me that I was wrong. I wasn’t looking at the good of all. I was looking for the easy way out. To not have to fight for what I wanted was taking the cheap way out. He said the one thing he knew about me was that I wasn’t a coward. That I wasn’t afraid to face my fears or the tough parts of life. He said that it was important to him to know that I was happy. He said he knew that the next six months or so would be tough on me. That worrying about things I can’t control thing again. But, that he knew it would be a whole lot easier if I continued to chase what made me so damn happy.

In less than forty-eight hours, my very good friend will enter a hospital for unbearable treatment. There is a chance this may do more harm than good. He could lose a lot. Memories. Thoughts. Even feelings and parts of the personality that makes him one of the very best human beings I have ever met. But, on this day, he reached out his hand to encourage me. To comfort me. To push me.

And because of that, I know that after all these years…through many hells and back, the greatest gift I have in life was on the phone with me today. And I know that long after he is gone, his words will continue to echo in my heart. And for that, I am blessed beyond words.

Rest easy, Mike. We who love you will do what you ask. Because we know….just because we know.