...but I can't.
15 years ago today, I received a phone call that effectively served to change my outlook on life as a whole.
I was a freshman at Iowa State University and I had just gotten back from a morning class when the phone in my dorm rang. It was my mom.
"Are you sitting down?" she asked.
"Yeah, why?"
"Mike died."
I was in shock. Everyone knew he was sick. Pretty much always had been as long as we'd known him. It was some type of cancer. Maybe bone cancer, I'm not sure. He had tumors up and down his spine and his lower torso musculature had degraded to the point that, whereas he was permanently crutch bound in high school, he was remanded to a wheelchair in college.
Yet, despite this knowledge, I never thought it would take his life. Maybe just limit his mobility. He was in physical therapy to rehab his muscles. Medicine had made advances. Surely these two facts alone would help him out.
Perhaps I was too optimistic. I was a glass-half-full kinda kid; a bit naive about how life works in these regards.
Mike was a pretty optimistic soul as well. He was 19 years old. A sophomore at North Central College in Naperville, IL. A diehard KISS freak and lover of all things hard rock and heavy metal. He worshipped the Detroit Lions, Tigers, and Pistons (oh my! - sorry, couldn't help myself). He drove himself everywhere with a slightly altered gas/brake pedal mechanism in his sports car. He went to concerts, sports events, and school with no help from anyone else. Not that he didn't have offers, but he liked knowing he could take care of himself. He lived life as though he would live forever. And many of us basked in his sunny glow.
Maybe that's why I thought he'd never be gone; because he didn't.
And yet he was gone. It wasn't fair. None of it was fair. He was loved by everyone. There was literally not a single person that could say a bad thing about him. Like the line in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, "Oh, he's very popular, Ed. The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies, dickheads - they all adore him. They think he's a righteous dude." Hell, I'd argue that Mike was more Ferris than Matthew Broderick.
I miss him. Insanely. I keep thinking about what he'd be doing now if he was still with us; if life was fair and he was able to marry (I always imagined him marrying someone named Beth) and have kids and continue hanging out with me and some of our other friends.
I know he and Katie would be friends. He'd love how outgoing she is. How she's "one of the guys" in terms of movies, music, food, drink, and sports. No question in my mind whatsoever.
I think about all the great things he could've accomplished with his life.
Perhaps, some will say, his greatest accomplishment is his legacy. The fact that, after 15 years, people still remember him fondly, visit his grave, and type about him on a Web that he was never able to experience.
Yeah, he will always be remembered. So long as my memory holds strong, Mike will always have a place in there.
Still, though, color me selfish, but sometimes I'd rather have my friend back.
