My Mikey Feb 5, 1988 – Dec 1, 2012

I was re-reading old entries and I came across this one that I had written about Michael way back in the day.

Things with my son M who has had a lot of problems in the past have been going pretty well. He is a little more open and honest with us, calling us when he will be late, calling when he gets somewhere and when he leaves to go somewhere else. His birthday was on Feb 5 and that day I had a little talk with him. I tried a new tactic, a new way of trying to get through to him. I told him my belief that we are all here for a reason, we have a job that must get done, a purpose to our existence, there is a rhyme and reason even if we don’t know what it is. I told him that he needs to change the way he  perceives things around him. He looks at himself as a follower, yet his friends all come to him with their problems,  they look to him to be the one to make the plans (good, bad or just plain stupid), so I told him that maybe he was more a leader than a follower and he should think and act like one. He has the power to make changes for good and have his friends follow his example,  so he should. I also told him that his friend that survived the car crash obviously had not fulfilled his purpose, his destiny…he tried to kill himself twice and it didn’t work. The world/universe still has a need of him here…it just isn’t his time. I asked him to think about his very good friend who died. I told him that maybe his purpose was done. That maybe his purpose was to lead his friends (esp. M) to this point in there lives when they would have to make choices. I asked him to think about the fact that maybe he (my son) had to go through all this in order to come out of it a better stronger person. And that maybe down the road there will be someone who comes into his life who needs his help, and if he hadn’t gone through this, he wouldn’t be able to help that person. I hope he heard me….I believe on some level he did, as soon after that talk, he started to change his attitude a little.  After the talk with him, my daughters friend from her soccer team came over and handed me a birthday card she had made for him, and she really doesn’t know him well, she did it out of the pure goodness of her heart and her love for my daughter…her friend. When I handed it to him, I asked him to think about all the people who care about him and love him. I reminded him that he was loved by many people and that others care about him, just because. I think he heard…finally.

This was from his HS Prom, fooling around of course lol

 This one is from a trip to Cancun, he tried so hard to go para-sailing with me and we got as far as going out in the boat, but the weather was too bad and we had to head back to the beach.

Michael DID hear what I had said to him above and took it to heart. After his death, I received messages from many of his friends, those I knew and also those I didn’t know. One in particular really stood out. The girl talked of how she and Michael had met through friends and how less than a week after meeting him, she decided that she was going to kill herself. I think that scared her and she tried getting in touch with friends to sit with her until the death wish passed. No one answered there phone. It was very early in the morning, I think a little after midnight. She came to Michael’s name in her contact list and called him. He went to her. She wrote about what a kind caring person he was and how he “saved” her life. He sat up with her all night listing reasons to live. She thanked me for raising such a caring person who dropped everything to be with her in her time of need. I was so proud of him and so very thankful that the young lady found me on Facebook and told me about this. She reaffirmed what I knew, but it felt so good.

Love you my quiet man.