Missing Michael, part 2

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Thanks for hanging in with me on this so far. Although I can feel my blood pressure building, I don't have quite the same emotional strain on me now as I did in writing the first part. This is very encouraging on the catharsis front, very encouraging.

Please read the first part below this post if you have not done so already.
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When Michael's tone changed so abruptly, it snapped me back closer to reality and I asked "Not that I am not thrilled with this surprise call but since we just talked on the weekend, why are you calling so soon again?" He said "I just had to tell you that I love you, that's all. I have to go now." Being annoyingly pragmatic at times, I took it at face value, returned the sentiment deeply and we signed off.

The phone didn't ring again until the afternoon of the next day. The voice at the other end identified the caller as Michael's aunt. I was delighted that the rest of his family had also wanted to connect with me ... until she cut to the chase to save us both any further torments and delusions. "I'm sorry, Lin, Michael is gone." I tried to think despite a good portion of the roof of the universe having just collapsed upon my being but it didn't work. "But .... noooo, but he ... nooo .... but he talked to me just ... nooooooo! He just talked to me last night, did he commit suicide? What? What was it?" "No, they said he died of a massive heart attack in his sleep." I could not fathom this news or make any sense of it. None! He was only 36! Nothing in the universe made sense at that moment. His voice returned through this fog to reiterate "You mean you hadn't heard of the family curse of the youngest son dying first?" His father, the youngest son and first to die, had obviously passed this on to him. My cerebral synapses would not fire. The pounding in my heart became not only physically painful but deafening as the sound of surging, racing blood filled my ears, cloaking his aunt's remaining words under a sodden muslin gauze of unreality. Somewhere in the murmuring onslaught of painful words, I sensed a silence and I vaguely recall myself saying on auto-pilot "I am so sorry. I will be back in touch soon."

I don't remember hanging up the phone, I have no idea what transpired between then and an unexpected knocking on the back door. I suppose my sense of duty overrode my inclination to ignore the summons and I found my way across the house now dimming with the twilight. A bald head and goateed face peered inquisitively into the dimness beyond the door glass. Trying to hide the mess of tears and swelling that my face had become, I pulled open the door for Harmonica Joe. While he would have normally said "Hey, I was just passing through so I stopped by" he was quick to assess the problem "My God, Lin, WHAT has happened?" "Joe, they took Michael from me!" With that, I could no longer hold back my sorrows and Joe was quick to throw a very needed, comforting embrace around my shoulders. Mark was on a rare business trip away and no doubt some angel had sent Joe to answer the distress call. The evening remains a blur but he faithfully stayed on into the late night until I was talked out and he was nodding off from fatigue. After I settled him into the guest bedroom, I stayed up for several more hours listening to the music fade in and out of my embroiled consciousness, until I could no longer resist the exhaustion and physical fatigue myself.

As my ever best friend, Mark assumed the necessary arrangements upon his arrival home and it wasn't long before we were flying into Denver and then heading north by rental car.

We arrived at the service the next day and settled into seats at the front row quietly and largely unannounced. The small church was packed right to the back aisles. It was all I could do to concentrate on not making an utter sobbing spectacle of myself. Mark's strength and his gentle but firm grasp on my hand helped maintain my composure.

Despite my misery, my analytical brain soon determined that we were two of a total of maybe ten straight people in the entire church. The minister, a rather robust and manly woman, proceeded with the service. Michael's aunt was seated two away from us, his older brother was closer but silent and guarded by his wife who had sat between us at a diagonal with her back rather rudely acting as a barrier between us. At one point, I slipped a memorial card that I had designed between her elbow and lap. Upon seeing my desperate effort to connect and console, she shoved the card off onto the floor with her elbow in disdain with nary so much as a turn to acknowledge our presence. A 9mm round to the forehead would have been much more kind, much less painful. I then realized why Michael and I had found each other and been so ecstatic. His aunt would later tell me that she had never seen him so happy and content as when his father's family found him again.

I could feel the tension of suppressed sorrow mounting in the room as the service proceeded. The lights dimmed until barely little but a podium could be seen at the far right as a hefty woman of great flair flounced confidently up the aisle and stood behind that podium. The rabbit hole widened considerably when I realized that the eulogist was a transvestite. Michael was probably hovering in the wings and chuckling with mischievous delight. But God bless that gal, uhm, fella. His very first words brought laughter and broke the stinging hold of grief. As he went on, we were all able to laugh and cry equally hard without censure and there was plenty of both to embrace. In the end, he told of how he had been contemplating suicide when Michael, who was bar tending that night, starting to talk with him, pointing out his remarkable talents and pushing him to pursue them and feel good about them. He noted that because of Michael's timely intervention that very night, he went on to find his act booked long term in Las Vegas instead of his life coming to an ugly and needless end alone. There were suppressed sobs as he offered an open mic to others who Michael had affected profoundly.

The next hour was the most intensely emotional time that either Mark or I had ever experienced. One by one, his friends and admirers came to the podium. The stories were all the same; Michael had come along at their most lonely and desperate time and given them sincere friendship, love and the reasons and will to go on. While Mark had been somewhat ambivalent given the short time he was able to spend with him, we left the church after the release of the white doves and he said "I am glad that we came here. I feel very privileged to have known him for even that brief time." That was my Michael, my beloved angelic boy.
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I had once wondered if someone could slowly die of a broken heart. Hopefully writing this story will provide the catharsis needed to slow that unintended journey now.
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