A few weeks ago, we lost my husband’s best friend of 45 years to cancer. He was only 54 years old. And, on top of the loss and sadness of losing Mike, we also had to deal with the death of our beloved Cocker Spaniel, Tawnee. She was with our family for 13 years and she passed away the morning of Mike’s viewing and rosary.

With the death of our dog, even though it was unexpected, we had many years to share all of those wonderful times together. Believe me when I tell you that we have hundreds of photos of our beautiful baby that we will cherish forever. But with our friend Mike, it was a different story. We knew his death was coming and, although we had many years of friendship, we wanted to capture every single moment we had left with him.

 

I can still remember the day my husband got off the phone and said to me, “Mike has cancer.” I felt like someone had knocked the wind out of me. But worse than that, was seeing the pain and fear in my husband’s eyes. It made me want to sit down and cry. I couldn’t believe it. Mike. Our Mike was diagnosed with cancer? That was just not possible. Out of all of our friends, Mike would have been the one I would have least expected this to happen to.

 

 

Speaking as a person who has lived all of my adult life with a chronic disease and pain, I have for the most part, tried to keep a positive attitude about life. My illness was not going to get me down and I felt the same way about Mike’s cancer. This disease was not going to beat him! And so, life went on. Mike started his treatments and he did start to get better.  At one point he was cancer free and he even hit his five year mark! We were all so happy for him and his family. We just knew he was in the clear.

 

Looking back, I think it was that second phone call that set everything into motion. Mike’s cancer was back. And, even with him and his doctors doing everything possible to get him back into remission, this time it wasn’t going away. So, with the news of his cancer returning, tucked neatly away in each of our minds, we began planning for what turned out to be the last year of his life. We tried very hard to cram in 45 years of friendship for Mike and my husband, Rich (about 33 years for the rest of us) into that year. We planned a weekend trip to a cabin in Big Bear City. We spent the holidays together with all of our families. For a Friday or Saturday night, we would plan a “Rock Band” night. Mike was a great drummer! We tried to make every single moment that we spent with him special and fun. Mike was always about having fun! Whatever he wanted, we were going to make it happen. And throughout it all, we never forgot to bring our cameras. Not only did we want Mike to leave this earth knowing how much he means to each of us and how much he is loved, but we wanted to remember how much fun we had creating and capturing each and every one of those moments. But in the years to come, we also wanted to look back at those pictures and remember our friend Mike. We want to remember what a funny, caring, loving man he was, how much we all loved him, and how much will miss him until we see him again.

 

 

For one who knows pain well, I know that he is free now and for that I am grateful. I am grateful for having him in my life. I’m also grateful for the laughter and joy he brought to my husband every day through their friendship over the last 45 years.

 

 Rest in peace Mike. We’ll see you soon.

 

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 12th, 2010 at 1:27 pm and is filed under General Chatter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.