Finalities

I went to the bank today to put my name on Michael's banking account. I don't want to close it just yet. I had the will naming me executor and the durable power of attorney, his death certificate, his most recent bank statement and my ID.

I'm having trouble doing things that confirm he's gone. Rob asked me tonight if he could have my iPod to play with over the weekend. I'm taking the one we bought for Michael. But I don't want to change it over yet.

I remember a friend of our family's when I was a kid. Their little girl died of a brain tumor and her mother left her bedroom the way it was for years and years. I don't want to go that far, but every little thing I change takes him that much farther away from me.

Rob's not being the least bit unreasonable. When we bought the iPod, we thought we'd have Michael for another year. I know it's not reasonable to not want to reprogram it -- the music and photos are all on his computer. I'm not losing anything.

But I'm having a bad day. Maybe it's because I didn't sleep well last night and I'm tired and cranky.

I put one of my favorite pictures of Mike on my desktop at work today because I thought it would make me feel better, but it didn't. There was that goofy grin and it's gone now. It just broke my heart to look at it.

I know Rob's feeling pretty bad too. He had a dream last night where he was being crushed by depression and no one could alleviate it. He was OK when he woke up, but he misses Mike terribly.

Oh, and speaking of favorite pics of Mike, this is one of James's:


It was at a Halloween party. Michael could be lazy about costume planning. For this one, he put on a suit and tried to look sleazy. He was a lawyer. In reality, he wanted to be a lawyer before he got sick. He had a 3.75 accum and hoped to continue on to law school after a major in history and a minor in philosophy for his undergrad work. He was a junior when he got sick.

James has the original photo on his refrigerator.

He'll be here tomorrow. Maybe we can all feel better by telling some jackass Mike stories.

Jaime McKee suggested today that I take some of his old T-shirts and a pair or two of his old flannel pajama bottoms and make a small quilt. It might be just the therapy I need. Janet has a lot of the T-shirts, but there are still a bunch left, and a whole lot of flannel pants.