He was only 48 years old.
Our church expects a crowd of 500 for his service on Saturday. His childhood church, in a small town about 2 hours away, has notified us they are bringing 80 cakes to help feed the crowd. Although we normally have two bereavement people each month to prepare food for funerals, our board of deacons, 18 men and women, are handling it. He was our Deacon Moderator, sort of like our Chairman of Deacons. The crowd will just be too large for 2 people to handle.
The fellow was not a politician. He was not an actor, or a high-powered attorney, or a much-loved doctor.
He was a manager at an electrical parts store.
But he was so much more.
He was larger than life. He was funny and sincere, and he was the best pray-er we know. He listened.He was honest to a fault. He worked hard. He played hard. He loved hard.
And people loved him.
I have already been in three informal settings in which people traded "Mike" stories. And he only died yesterday afternoon.
His cancer started about 2 years ago. He had liver cancer. His body endured chemo, radiation, all kinds of infections, edema, shutdowns, brief periods of respite, then more aggressive cancer growth.
He shared his health status with us factually and with humor. He looked at us with clear eyes and asked for prayer for his wife and family.
He never, not once, complained.
You know, at church, we talk about having faith through trial and believing in prayer and all those things.
Mike is the only person I have ever known who really, truly, absolutely lived it.
I want to learn from this, and I will miss him.
We all will.
***
Little One is working on her Science Fair project. She will play portions of several songs, all different genres, for her subjects, and will video their reactions to the music. She has selected a pop song, a rap song, a gospel song, a Broadway song, a classical tune, and a jazz piece. What she is actually videoing is the subjects' blink rate. Each subject has to rate the songs on a scale of 1 to 5 as to how well he liked the music. Her hypothesis is that the blink rate will be lower while hearing music the subjects like the best.
Ironically enough, she downloaded this song last night for use in her project. With Mike's death in the forefront of my mind, I felt the song had particular meaning.
Here is the song.
525,600 minutes
525,000 moments so dear.
525,600 minutes -
How do
you measure,
Measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets,
In midnights,
in cups of coffee.
In inches, in miles,
In laughter, in strife.
525,600 minutes -
How do you measure
A year in the life?
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