NORTHEAST GEORGIA BLOG

I found out over these past couple of weeks that when you loose a loved one unexpectedly —- things change.  Everything changes.  For myself and our family time stood still for about 12 days as we watched my nephew breathe with a ventilator and be fed with a feeding tube.  We wondered every hour if this was the moment he opens his eyes, maybe squeeze someone’s hand, or even start breathing on his own – three little things that we all take for granted.  Call it what you want…hope, false hope, unrealistic expectations, faith…it really doesn’t matter now.

Michael passed away quietly.  He touched lives with his organ donation – probably saved one or two.  He touched many more lives while he was with us.

I got the call on Thursday, July 2 at about 1100pm that he had been involved in a horrific accident.  At 1101pm my life changed forever.  All of those terrible problems we had — they became so irrelevant, so fast.  All that wondering and second-guessing myself about the day before – decisions, sales calls – those too became irrelevant.  All I knew as I drove down Hwy 129 to Athens in the middle of the night was that our little Mikey was fighting for his life.

Crazy thoughts flash thru your mind at a time like this.  I thought about all of the great memories – I thought about all of the times I picked up the phone to call him, but didn’t – I even thought about what he would think about being in ATHENS.  He’s a TECH fan!

After arriving at the hospital and finding out how serious his injuries were – head injuries are always bad – my focus immediately went to his wonderful wife and son, my brother, his wife, and Michael’s brother and sister – my Mom and Dad – all of the other family members that loved Mikey.  What do I do?  I’m standing around the hospital like the most helpless person in the World – I can’t do anything.

We do this for twelve days.  Hundreds stop by daily.  I remember at one point trying to get into the ICU waiting room and just giving up – the place was packed like sardines with lives that Mikey had touched.  Rich people, poor people, educated people, uneducated people, democrats, republicans, TECH fans, Dawg fans…it really didn’t matter…we were all together trying to help Mikey pull this off.  We were also all there to try our best to do what we could for his wonderful family.

The viewing on Friday just blew my mind.  There was no parking at the funeral home.  There was no room to hardly move.  The place was packed.  Ditto for the funeral services on Saturday.  This little guy who was only given 30 years had an impact on so many people – he touched so many lives – he will live on forever.

There are two points to all of my rambling:

1) I need to do something – writing about this seemed to be the right thing to do right now.  It’s very selfish on my part but it really helps to write about him, talk about him, and remember him.

2) I wanted to drive home the point that those things you are worrying about right now – they can be forgotten in the blink of an eye – long forgotten.  I would give anything right now to be worrying about those same little things right now.

RIP Mikey.

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