My Beloved Uncle Mike
Last Tuesday, December 27th, 2022, my beloved uncle Mike died at home, surrounded by his loved ones. I'm not going to be able to make it back to Indiana for his service today, so I'd like to share some of my memories of him and as a way to put my grief out there somewhere other than my own head.
Growing up, I didn't have many positive male role models in my life, but my uncle Mike was one of them. He was my youngest uncle, and my mom enlisted both him and my uncle Steve for babysitting duty when little baby me woke up in the middle of the night. My uncles were always up anyway watching the local late night horror host Sammy Terry or reruns of the Twilight Zone, so putting me in my pumpkin seat on the floor next to them until I drfited back to sleep wasn't a very difficult task for two teenaged boys. When I got a little older Mike and I would watch Dark Shadows after he got home from school while grandma was cooking dinner. He loved vampires and spooky things, which is probably where I got many of my own proclivities. My Dark Shadows privileges were revoked after one particularly inspiring episode that compelled me to bite my poor uncle on the neck. Yes, there was blood and to my surprise it did not taste anything like cherry Kool-Aide.
Mike was a fantastic artist and I was absolutely enthralled at how he could draw pretty much anything and make it look so good. My grandparents had a charcoal still life he drew framed and hanging on their living room wall. Apparently it was a high school art project that a less talented classmate stole and put their name on it before Mike could hand it in. Somehow Mike was able to prove it was his drawing and got it back. That little drama only added to how cool I thought my uncle was. He would always let me have a sheet of his special drawing paper too, because I wanted to be an artist like him.
One early morning when I was about four years old, my mom woke me up and bundled me into her car. She was really upset but trying to stay calm. I asked her where we were going, and she told me my uncle Mike had been in a car accident. For some reason, we went to where he had gone off the road to take photos of his car. It was a crumpled mess. From what I remember, he had fallen asleep, gone off the road and crashed, then pulled himself from the wreckage and walked across a cornfield back home. Grandma and grandpa took him to the hospital where the doctor pulled several shards of glass from his head and stitched him back up, giving him those bits of glass in a sealed test tube. It was a morbid but undeniably exciting artifact that I always asked to see when I was visiting grandma and grandpa.
Mike always seemed to work the kind of jobs that sounded fun, interesting or creative. For a while, he worked with horses at a nearby stable and I loved going with grandma on the rare occasion to pick him up when his car was in the shop. He also worked at a glass studio making stained glass panels and suncatchers. He created a stained glass pendulum lamp and a beautiful commissioned panel for the local Dairy Queen. I hope it's still there.
When Mike was working as a landscaper for a nursing home, he met and married my aunt Laurie. She was so lovely and I even got to be a flower girl at their wedding, which was one of the highlights of my childhood. It made me a little sad that uncle Mike wouldn't be there anymore when I went to grandma's and grandpa's, but Laurie would always show up with mom and grandma for every band performance or event, and she would invite me for sleepovers and movies. Somehow having me as a niece did not deter them from having kids, and they had my wonderful cousins Jared and Sarah.
Of course, after my mother passed away and then my grandpa, nothing was quite the same. I had moved away and Mike and Laurie went their separate ways. Social media became more prevalent and one day, I got a friend request from my uncle. It was so cool because here was this person who has been part of my entire life that I looked up to as a child and now I get to meet them again as an adult. In my uncle's case, I got to look up to him again in an entirely new light. We still had a lot in common - a love for old buildings, cooking good food, music, art, horror movies, and books. He was now a master mason and specialized in historic preservation, which was exactly the perfect vocation for his artistic sensibilities and solid work ethic. Eventually Mike swapped out social media for texting and he'd randomly send me pictures of his kitty, messages about projects he was working on, and photos of his grandkids. Those texts were always a treat for me.
Our last phone conversation was early last autumn. He had been diagnosed with cancer but hadn't started treatment yet. He told me how he had gone for a motorcycle ride around our hometown and how everything looked so beautiful to him, as if he were really seeing things for the first time. We talked for a little over an hour, said our good-byes and that was that. I hate that I will never get another text from him or hear his voice again, but I know he's still here in all he created and restored. Many years ago he told me one of his favorite books was Siddhartha by Herman Hesse and recommended I read it. I told him I would if he would read my favorite of Hesse's books, Demian. I'm not sure if he ever got to it, but I did find a copy of Siddhartha a couple years ago and enjoyed every page, and by reading it, understanding a little more about my uncle Mike. These last few days after his passing I've been reading bits of it as a small comfort and I'd like to end my tribute with an excerpt that probably sums up why my uncle Mike was such a good man and why he will be so, so missed.
“It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
Good-bye, uncle Mike. I hope you know how much you were respected, admired, and loved.
Growing up, I didn't have many positive male role models in my life, but my uncle Mike was one of them. He was my youngest uncle, and my mom enlisted both him and my uncle Steve for babysitting duty when little baby me woke up in the middle of the night. My uncles were always up anyway watching the local late night horror host Sammy Terry or reruns of the Twilight Zone, so putting me in my pumpkin seat on the floor next to them until I drfited back to sleep wasn't a very difficult task for two teenaged boys. When I got a little older Mike and I would watch Dark Shadows after he got home from school while grandma was cooking dinner. He loved vampires and spooky things, which is probably where I got many of my own proclivities. My Dark Shadows privileges were revoked after one particularly inspiring episode that compelled me to bite my poor uncle on the neck. Yes, there was blood and to my surprise it did not taste anything like cherry Kool-Aide.
Mike was a fantastic artist and I was absolutely enthralled at how he could draw pretty much anything and make it look so good. My grandparents had a charcoal still life he drew framed and hanging on their living room wall. Apparently it was a high school art project that a less talented classmate stole and put their name on it before Mike could hand it in. Somehow Mike was able to prove it was his drawing and got it back. That little drama only added to how cool I thought my uncle was. He would always let me have a sheet of his special drawing paper too, because I wanted to be an artist like him.
One early morning when I was about four years old, my mom woke me up and bundled me into her car. She was really upset but trying to stay calm. I asked her where we were going, and she told me my uncle Mike had been in a car accident. For some reason, we went to where he had gone off the road to take photos of his car. It was a crumpled mess. From what I remember, he had fallen asleep, gone off the road and crashed, then pulled himself from the wreckage and walked across a cornfield back home. Grandma and grandpa took him to the hospital where the doctor pulled several shards of glass from his head and stitched him back up, giving him those bits of glass in a sealed test tube. It was a morbid but undeniably exciting artifact that I always asked to see when I was visiting grandma and grandpa.
Mike always seemed to work the kind of jobs that sounded fun, interesting or creative. For a while, he worked with horses at a nearby stable and I loved going with grandma on the rare occasion to pick him up when his car was in the shop. He also worked at a glass studio making stained glass panels and suncatchers. He created a stained glass pendulum lamp and a beautiful commissioned panel for the local Dairy Queen. I hope it's still there.
When Mike was working as a landscaper for a nursing home, he met and married my aunt Laurie. She was so lovely and I even got to be a flower girl at their wedding, which was one of the highlights of my childhood. It made me a little sad that uncle Mike wouldn't be there anymore when I went to grandma's and grandpa's, but Laurie would always show up with mom and grandma for every band performance or event, and she would invite me for sleepovers and movies. Somehow having me as a niece did not deter them from having kids, and they had my wonderful cousins Jared and Sarah.
Of course, after my mother passed away and then my grandpa, nothing was quite the same. I had moved away and Mike and Laurie went their separate ways. Social media became more prevalent and one day, I got a friend request from my uncle. It was so cool because here was this person who has been part of my entire life that I looked up to as a child and now I get to meet them again as an adult. In my uncle's case, I got to look up to him again in an entirely new light. We still had a lot in common - a love for old buildings, cooking good food, music, art, horror movies, and books. He was now a master mason and specialized in historic preservation, which was exactly the perfect vocation for his artistic sensibilities and solid work ethic. Eventually Mike swapped out social media for texting and he'd randomly send me pictures of his kitty, messages about projects he was working on, and photos of his grandkids. Those texts were always a treat for me.
Our last phone conversation was early last autumn. He had been diagnosed with cancer but hadn't started treatment yet. He told me how he had gone for a motorcycle ride around our hometown and how everything looked so beautiful to him, as if he were really seeing things for the first time. We talked for a little over an hour, said our good-byes and that was that. I hate that I will never get another text from him or hear his voice again, but I know he's still here in all he created and restored. Many years ago he told me one of his favorite books was Siddhartha by Herman Hesse and recommended I read it. I told him I would if he would read my favorite of Hesse's books, Demian. I'm not sure if he ever got to it, but I did find a copy of Siddhartha a couple years ago and enjoyed every page, and by reading it, understanding a little more about my uncle Mike. These last few days after his passing I've been reading bits of it as a small comfort and I'd like to end my tribute with an excerpt that probably sums up why my uncle Mike was such a good man and why he will be so, so missed.
“It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
Good-bye, uncle Mike. I hope you know how much you were respected, admired, and loved.