Mike was a lifelong student. His love of learning began in childhood, and was nurtured by excellent teachers in high school. He studied English in college; the family script sent him to medical school. 

When we met, he was studying for certification in addiction medicine and accumulating CEUs in psychiatry. 

He also studied:

• The Kennedy assassination (Oswald acted alone)
• The opioid crisis
• The writings of C.S. Lewis and Scott Peck
• The Christian mystics

That last category was his final focus – more than a decade. Richard Rohr was a favorite, along with Julian of Norwich – and Nancy of Madam’s Creek.

Sometimes I feel guilty about the things I can do now.

I don’t mean things I couldn’t do because I was caring for him. I gladly and willingly did everything I could for him when he was sick and undergoing cancer treatment.

But I didn’t do some things, because he preferred I didn’t:

• Eat/cook with garlic
• Choose a frozen meal rather than home-cooked
• Play loud rock music
• Take over his closet.
• Look at my phone as much as I want to.

He would have tolerated some of those things. That’s what married people do, right?

Not the garlic, though.

Mike was a psychiatrist. He stepped away from patient care in the late ‘90s to write a book about the opioid problem. It was called Doctor's Orders – thoroughly researched, accurate, scientific – and way ahead of its time. 

He saw OxyContin and Soma ravaging Appalachia while drug sales reps dangled trips and rewards for heavy prescribers. 

Bookstore and library shelves today are stacked with volumes about drug addiction, non-fiction and fiction. Mike’s ultimate goal was to help lawmakers see that addiction was a healthcare issue, and that treatment  – not punishment – was the answer. 

We’re still waiting for that light to dawn.

He used to navigate the world on his own. The big stuff, anyway. If I was out of town, I could count on a call asking where something was, or how something worked.

Cancer made Mike vulnerable. 

We ditched our landline 11 years ago, but he wanted the security. All incoming calls were spam, which made him angry. We ditched the landline again.

I gradually took over appointments, schedules, routines. He didn’t like being dependent, but needed to be. I still, occasionally, hear him calling for me to help him up, bring his meds, or to just … sit with him.

He was desperate to live. He knew there was another miracle called Mike. 

He’d claimed one in 2011, when a doctor suggested he get his affairs in order after examining a lump in his throat. The biopsy argued benign.

His diagnosis in 2019 of esophageal cancer started a roller-coaster ride of cures and recurrences, treatments and side effects, hopes and prayers and prayers.

In the end, he had to be convinced that home hospice would help. And that a bed in a hospice house would help more.

Bless those hospice angels, who convinced him to let go when I couldn’t.