BE LIKE MIKE

No, Not That One

I am not cool. I have never been cool. Maybe I’ve played cool a few times. Or sounded cool in a story. I am not cool.

Now, there's this guy, Mike. One of the smoothest, coolest people I ever met. This is a story about how I met Mike.

Years before that happened, I was born in England. We moved and moved and moved—around London, then to America in time for the Bicentennial. We lived in an apartment in Westchester County, just north of New York City. Then, we moved to Roosevelt Island, which is technically in NYC. It's probably more accurate to say it’s in the East River. Then, at about the age of 12, we went from the bustling big city to a bucolic suburb outside Boston.

Me in Red, 1978.

Moving was hard, I suppose. My memory is fuzzy for details—something a therapist might have thoughts on. This move to a wooded suburb was particularly tricky. I was not particularly outgoing. I was shy. I was a year younger than most of my grade—a consequence of how school starts in England, a year earlier, not grade-jumping intelligence.

This is at a time when bodies are changing. I’d been pretty good at baseball and soccer. But in this new school, we played with kids in our grade. Not our age. Biological age bit me in the butt.

I did not make many friends or fit in. There wasn’t anything terrible— there were nice kids. It was just a sort of outsider status. That coupled with being in a town that required rides everywhere. The simple stroll from my apartment to a friend’s spot was replaced by the need to ask Mom for a ride. She was many things in my childhood; a reliable form of transport was not one of them. Love you, Mom!

It is odd to hear about how people often move their families in the modern age. With intent. In my experience, you would finish school on a Friday, and on Monday, you picked it all up in the new school.

So on to Mike

In February 1986, the family picked up and moved back to Westchester, NY—a tiny town called Bronxville, with emphasis on the “‘ville.” It had a great school. You could walk everywhere. Rich, mostly. Lawyers and bankers. Tennis and country clubs.

I recall feeling a little drained. Another move. Or maybe just resolved to the reality of it.

I had started to develop an awareness. When you go to a new place, no one knows you. In the pre-internet days, no posts, comments, or cringe-worthy pictures preceded your arrival. You could be a blank slate. You could be someone else—someone new. As much as a 15 year-old is anyone yet.

I remember thinking I needed to be more outgoing. I don’t think I was. But self-awareness isn’t always about action. Often, it’s just about gut-wrenching doubt and lack of action. But baby steps…

I muddled through those first days. I was trying. I was definitely not a good student, and I was definitely not trying very hard at that. Looking back, people were nice. But I think the stress of it all hid that from me. 

At some point in those first few weeks, there was a dance. At the Women’s Club. A mixer. Jacket and tie required. Talk to girls. Dance. A cocktail vibe. Without the drinks. Adult life lesson stuff, I guess.

Teen boys Mike is on the left.

Enter Mike. I’d met him before this night. I knew he had moved to town just a year before me. At some point that evening, Mike and I found ourselves in a quiet spot away from the party. “Party” might be overstating it. Specifically, we stood against the wall on the landing of a staircase in the colonial-style club.

There, we talked about moving. He’d done it a few times. We talked about stuff. He shared what he had learned in his extra year there: who was nice, who struggled to be nice, and pointers on teachers. Lots of the kids there had been in school together since kindergarten. There was a defense to crack.

He was fun. He was light-hearted. He was helpful. I don’t remember anything exactly as he said it. But sitting here now, almost 40 years since, I feel warm. Safe. I feel a friend.

I went home that night and told my mom about it. I remember saying, “I think I’ve made a friend.”

In the next two years of high school, we became better and better friends. I remember being in the front seat of his car—some sort of two-door Mitsubishi, maybe—hatchback when we rear-ended another car while driving to a football game.

After high school, he went west. We talked from time to time and saw each other as well.

I saw him in LA, or Huntington Beach, to be precise. Another time, we met up in Palm Springs. We played a memorable round of golf. I recall that I putt, or is it putted, off a green into the water hazard. He introduced me to the concept of a retired person’s cocktail there. Drinks as large as a grapefruit. We got an early bird special.

Just like Bronxville, he was a little bit ahead of me. He got married a little bit before me. His advice kept coming.

Before my wedding, he urged me to enjoy it. He reminded me it won’t go as planned. He demanded that I remember it was a party for us and once it began to be present.

We had our first kids at about the same time. This was one occasion that I was just a bit ahead of him.

He was building a business in California and often found himself in New York. We’d grab a drink or a meal. How long had we been apart after a few minutes and sips? It always seemed to feel like I’d seen him the week before. The friend who instantly feels like they never left.

Then, out of the blue, like it happens for so many, Mike got sick. Cancer. Fuck cancer.  My maternal grandfather died from it over a decade before my birth. His son would be taken by it as well. A few months before Mike was diagnosed, cancer killed my mother. That was draining. Four weeks from diagnosis to death. So, for sure, fuck cancer.

Mike battled the “bugs,” as he called them. He still came to New York for work. Looking back at the texts, I'm reminded that we would go back and forth about plans, and then the texts would stop abruptly. Mike would just pick up the phone and call. A make-it-happen sort of guy. To the core.

I would use that part of him to motivate myself all the time. My job required me to call strangers and talk to them, convince them to do things that they might not want to do. Go on TV and talk. Often, you wanted to know about the worst thing that had ever happened to them—the death of a child or a friend. Most of the time, almost all the time, people want to tell the story of those they loved and lost. That doesn’t make asking about it much easier.

The nerves and anxious moments were often dulled by considering what Mike would do—or, more specifically, that Mike would be appalled at my hesitation. Even now, if I’ve written an email and I’m vacillating over wording or phrasing and stuck in a moment of paralysis, I’ll think of Mike, and I’ll say to myself, “Send it.”

I took Mike’s persona around the world, meeting strangers in places new and unfamiliar, knocking on doors, and trudging up mountains. It doesn't come naturally to me. I channeled Mike. He could sell sand to a Saudi or rainwater to the English. Gregarious and charming with such ease, you might wonder if it was part of his automatic nervous system.

From Alaska to Long Island to South Africa to Vietnam to Colorado to Mexico and many others in between

When I started to write this, my memory was that I had never told Mike, just what he meant to me. How meeting him changed me. Helped me. Made me better. But it turns out I had an email exchange in 2018. He had written about another setback and surgery. Here is part of what I wrote in reply;

“You are a great man and the kindness and friendship you showed me when we first met changed my life. I’d make a joke now about the parole almost being up, but, well I did.  It did change my life and the timing does make me think that maybe someone is looking out for us, in the meantime I know you will get stuck in and stay strong.”

Looking over various messages, even in the face of a bleak future, he was quick-witted and happy. The embodiment of optimism and hope.

I was in LA near his home for Christmas in 2018, and we had planned to get together around the New Year. But he was recovering from a “double infusion,” and his wife texted from his phone that he was down with a nasty headache and sleeping. I had tentative plans to be back in LA in February. We punted the visit for another time.

We were both born in January. As with other things, he was born the year before me. There are a few texts in most Januarys with me getting happy birthday wishes from him at the beginning of the month and my returning them at the end. 

In late January 2019, I wrote to wish him a happy birthday. He replied, “… taking it day by day. Much love and many hugs.”

My reply:  "😘😘 You sexy beast!”

Looking back at the texts, I was warmed to see the word “love” again and again.

Mike died a few weeks later, in April. He was 49.

We can do nothing alone. Acts of kindness toward those we already know and love and those who are complete strangers have an impact that resonates in our souls and theirs—in our lives—forever. Cherish those who grant you this grace, and seek to be a blessing to others. Mike was a blessing to me.

I wanted it known that I miss him. I think about him all the time. I remember him all the time. He is with me all the time. I love him.