Post by reowen51 on Apr 14, 2008 15:45:52 GMT -5
I returned home from an out of state turkey hunt in Tennessee with my son, to learn that I had lost one of my dearest lifelong friends. It is rare indeed that you can not recall the events surrounding the meeting of your best friends but that was the case with my friend Mike and me. We were so close we were like family. When we spoke last, a little over a month ago, neither of us could recall the exact events of our first meeting. We simply grew up together as friends and after high school we found ourselves separated by many miles but still managed to maintain a phone relationship over the last 40 years. We saw each other occasionally but we always felt that more time together would have been better. Mike found out about 10 months ago he had cancer.
I knew it was serious. Although, he never let on about the fact that he thought he was losing the battle when he turned down my request to come and visit him, I knew. It was just one of those things that did not have to be said between friends as close as we had been. He was after all my son’s God Father, and my son was given Mike’s name for his middle name. This was the same son I was hunting with in the Tennessee wilderness.
I missed the funeral. I did not get the news until I got home to Michigan and talked to my wife. We had been turkey hunting middle Tennessee. It has become a tradition for the two of us to turkey hunt away from our home state of Michigan and it’s one bird limit. Mike passed away the day after we left and when his wife called us with the news a day later, we were deep the woods far from the cellular towers that keep us all connected. I chased gobblers on the day my childhood best friend surrendered to cancer. Somehow, I don’t think he would have minded. We had had that conversation before, the one about how we wanted our funerals to be.
I would have made the effort to be there had I known and so would my son Britt. We both loved Mike. We did not know so we hunted. My son and I made some wonderful memories but mostly it rained. In retrospect possibly our creator was crying over Mike’s transition and/or our not knowing. I got drenched in his tears, numerous times over the six days of our hunt.
I vividly remember two events today as I reflect over Mike’s passing. One was a conversation Mike and I had at about fifteen years of age that had come up just recently and the other was a discovery I had made on a middle Tennessee hillside about the same time Mike passed away. I would like to comment just briefly on both.
One dark moonless night, when we were kids, we had laid on our backs on a Lake Huron beach looking up into the heavens. The night was clear and the stars, millions of them, were very beautiful. Mike said, “It sure is big isn’t it?” “It sure is.” I responded. “Do you know what really bothers me about it?” He asked. “No.” I said. “I’m afraid that I might live my life and when it is over that nobody will remember that I was here. There are not a lot of people that get remembered in the history books as being special. I don’t need to be famous. I just want to know that my life stood for something.”
That conversation came up again in one of our last phone conversations when Mike confided in me that he had a then four month old Grandson that he feared might never come to know him. I reminded him of that night on the beach. Your daughters Julie and Jenny, will never let that happen, I told him. Neither will your wife, Cindy. You have created a legacy of love and caring within your family circle and your circle of friends.
While making my way up a hollow on a Tennessee hillside last week, I stumbled upon an old stone fence. As it turned out it would have been about the same time that Mike passed away. There I was out in the middle of nowhere and I come across the remnants of somebody’s hard work and toil. This fence was two to three feet high and run to my left and right as far as I could see. Upon further examination I realized that this fence at one time had surrounded a field that was now overgrown. Someone had homesteaded here and attempted to farm this place and failed. I thought at the time of the effort that had been made here by this person. I wondered if the fences creator ever thought about somebody like me discovering his legacy a hundred years later.
It made me question the validity of my own life’s work. I was a teacher before retiring a few years ago. Will any of this work we do here on earth really make a difference? Will any of it mark our passing? Is any of it worth it?
When I mentioned this to my son he suggested that the work up there on that fence might well have been done by slaves. I thought wow, someone working that hard on someone else’s dream…that is unbelievable.
As I dealt with the loss of one of my best friends I came up with this. I really believe that the effort we put into the relationships we have with family and friends will be our individual legacy. The physical work we do although it matters at the time will not stand the test of time to get us remembered. Mike was a great friend, husband, Father, Grandfather, and a wonderful human being. He served his country in the United States Air force. He was the only baseball player ever signed to a professional contract from our old high school.
I will be asking the administration at our old high school to assist in keeping Mike’s legacy alive by naming the high school’s baseball facility after him sometime this spring.
I pray that all of us will have the ability to see our efforts in life create for us a positive legacy. Tonight, I will be staring into the heavens at the stars and reforming my own efforts toward leaving a positive legacy. Feel free to join me out there. There is plenty of room.
You enjoyed many of God’s blessings Mike. Save me a place close to the water, with a great view of the heavens. If it’s not too much to ask, a small woodlot holding some gobblers and whitetail deer not too far from the ballpark would make the place just perfect. Throw in the people we love and that would make it…well… Heaven!
Bob Owen
Motivational Speaker/ Author
I knew it was serious. Although, he never let on about the fact that he thought he was losing the battle when he turned down my request to come and visit him, I knew. It was just one of those things that did not have to be said between friends as close as we had been. He was after all my son’s God Father, and my son was given Mike’s name for his middle name. This was the same son I was hunting with in the Tennessee wilderness.
I missed the funeral. I did not get the news until I got home to Michigan and talked to my wife. We had been turkey hunting middle Tennessee. It has become a tradition for the two of us to turkey hunt away from our home state of Michigan and it’s one bird limit. Mike passed away the day after we left and when his wife called us with the news a day later, we were deep the woods far from the cellular towers that keep us all connected. I chased gobblers on the day my childhood best friend surrendered to cancer. Somehow, I don’t think he would have minded. We had had that conversation before, the one about how we wanted our funerals to be.
I would have made the effort to be there had I known and so would my son Britt. We both loved Mike. We did not know so we hunted. My son and I made some wonderful memories but mostly it rained. In retrospect possibly our creator was crying over Mike’s transition and/or our not knowing. I got drenched in his tears, numerous times over the six days of our hunt.
I vividly remember two events today as I reflect over Mike’s passing. One was a conversation Mike and I had at about fifteen years of age that had come up just recently and the other was a discovery I had made on a middle Tennessee hillside about the same time Mike passed away. I would like to comment just briefly on both.
One dark moonless night, when we were kids, we had laid on our backs on a Lake Huron beach looking up into the heavens. The night was clear and the stars, millions of them, were very beautiful. Mike said, “It sure is big isn’t it?” “It sure is.” I responded. “Do you know what really bothers me about it?” He asked. “No.” I said. “I’m afraid that I might live my life and when it is over that nobody will remember that I was here. There are not a lot of people that get remembered in the history books as being special. I don’t need to be famous. I just want to know that my life stood for something.”
That conversation came up again in one of our last phone conversations when Mike confided in me that he had a then four month old Grandson that he feared might never come to know him. I reminded him of that night on the beach. Your daughters Julie and Jenny, will never let that happen, I told him. Neither will your wife, Cindy. You have created a legacy of love and caring within your family circle and your circle of friends.
While making my way up a hollow on a Tennessee hillside last week, I stumbled upon an old stone fence. As it turned out it would have been about the same time that Mike passed away. There I was out in the middle of nowhere and I come across the remnants of somebody’s hard work and toil. This fence was two to three feet high and run to my left and right as far as I could see. Upon further examination I realized that this fence at one time had surrounded a field that was now overgrown. Someone had homesteaded here and attempted to farm this place and failed. I thought at the time of the effort that had been made here by this person. I wondered if the fences creator ever thought about somebody like me discovering his legacy a hundred years later.
It made me question the validity of my own life’s work. I was a teacher before retiring a few years ago. Will any of this work we do here on earth really make a difference? Will any of it mark our passing? Is any of it worth it?
When I mentioned this to my son he suggested that the work up there on that fence might well have been done by slaves. I thought wow, someone working that hard on someone else’s dream…that is unbelievable.
As I dealt with the loss of one of my best friends I came up with this. I really believe that the effort we put into the relationships we have with family and friends will be our individual legacy. The physical work we do although it matters at the time will not stand the test of time to get us remembered. Mike was a great friend, husband, Father, Grandfather, and a wonderful human being. He served his country in the United States Air force. He was the only baseball player ever signed to a professional contract from our old high school.
I will be asking the administration at our old high school to assist in keeping Mike’s legacy alive by naming the high school’s baseball facility after him sometime this spring.
I pray that all of us will have the ability to see our efforts in life create for us a positive legacy. Tonight, I will be staring into the heavens at the stars and reforming my own efforts toward leaving a positive legacy. Feel free to join me out there. There is plenty of room.
You enjoyed many of God’s blessings Mike. Save me a place close to the water, with a great view of the heavens. If it’s not too much to ask, a small woodlot holding some gobblers and whitetail deer not too far from the ballpark would make the place just perfect. Throw in the people we love and that would make it…well… Heaven!
Bob Owen
Motivational Speaker/ Author
