I believe this photo is of Mike on a monopod, it’s from the right time and set up in the same way he told me. We unfortunately were both being low technology at the time so we had no photos together.
I met Mike in June 2021 when we were both volunteering at a series of remote work camps on Vancouver Island but I sort of met him 3 times. We would use nicknames at the camps and originally we were living on different sites so we had only communicated by satellite device. Mike was at a camp with some pretty draining work going on and I would check in with him every morning and night to see how everyone was doing, what had happened that day, and check what supplies I could get them. Despite everything going on, he was often full of joy and excitement, once playing Jack Johnson on his speaker and dancing for the entire camp to try to keep their spirits up.
A couple weeks later I was at a different camp. We were in a technical meeting that I needed to pay attention to what was being said but was also dealing with important sat messages coming in so I was distracted. At one point I heard someone suggest something dangerous and I spoke up to say that wouldn’t work and then went back to messages. Afterwards this person I didn’t know pulled me aside and was like, I get you, you’re very big and small picture at the same time. He had changed his nickname but filled me in on who he was from the messages and we smiled and gave each other a big hug. That night there was a mixup and I ended up on night watch by myself. When Mike found out the next morning, he came to find me and told me to come find him if that ever happened again because he didn’t want me out there alone. I’ve spent most of my life being the one who had to show up for everyone or with people needing something from me, and all of a sudden there was this random person I didn’t know who it felt like saw me and appreciated me for exactly who I was and just wanted to show up for me.
We spent the next 7 weeks mostly on the same site. Often from 6am-2am, we’d spend our days dealing with a hundred small emergencies that would come up but Mike was always finding ways to keep people laughing. At the end of most days he and I would be the last ones up in our area, and we’d just sit in my van together smoking a joint and talking about anything and everything except for what had been going on where we were. We found out that we had almost met a number of times before this but had just missed each other. It felt like this special moment where for a second we could have been anywhere else, and we didn’t have to have the weight of anything on our shoulders. Then he’d park his van next to mine and we’d go to sleep and start the whole thing over the next day.
We had both ended up doing a lot of people managing when we really wanted to be running around in the woods so we would often cover for each other at camp to let the other one go off adventuring. Some of his mysterious adventures include the time he was building what they called a sparkle horse and needed me to get him a horse saddle and a sparkly dildo (the saddle I was successful with, unfortunately not so the dildo), when he achieved running the fastest recorded time on The Mario Trail, when he climbed a tree we called Owls nest to keep a birds eye view on the lower camp and found the only cell service for miles, when he helped organize a birthday dance party in the middle of the night for a friend right in front of a police line.
In mid august we shuffled around to different camps and sort of lost track of each other in the craziness, but in the middle of September he had found my info and sent me a message to check in. I had just lost a close friend and my grandfather and was really not doing well, quite honestly I was a shell of a person at the time. I don’t know if he knew that and was concerned or had just wanted to reconnect but the next couple months after that Mike saved my life over and over. I had gone back to Ontario for a bit and ended up staying there longer than I meant to because of some health and car issues. On days that I would struggle to leave my bed or even say a word Mike would send me a message asking if I wanted to have a call and all of a sudden I’d be talking politics, and what forest walks he’s been on, and new ideas he had for work for hours. I was deciding between spending the season in Revelstoke or Nelson and he kept saying what do I need to do to get you to come here with me for the season, I found you a really great place to work, I’ll tell you my real name if you come here. The honest answer was that I was terrified of how happy I felt when I was around Mike, it felt too good to be true, but my best friend reminded me that being able to be flexible and explore these things was one of the reasons I lived the life I did so in January I headed to Nelson.
When I walked in to his place we still didn’t know what each others real names were and had to introduce ourselves when he introduced me to Esteban who was living with him. My second or third night in town he asked me if I wanted to help him steal his van out of the impound lot. It had been towed for a second time and the first time they had parked it outside of the gate so he wanted us to grab it and drive it back to vancouver over night instead of paying for the tow fee again. At this point in time I was pretty much agoraphobic and only felt safe in my van, but Mike made me feel safe enough to go scouting tow lots in the middle of the night because it felt like nothing could happen while I was with him. He used to laugh and say, it’s fine Jess we’re just starting your exposure therapy early. So we went to the lot around 8, waited for the dog to be taken for a walk, and then snuck down to see where his van was with me being his scout, making terrible bird sounds at each other when we needed to communicate. All of a sudden Mike popped out of the darkness in a crouching/crawling position and we ran back down the road and back to his place to plan the heist. Because the car was under his company we ended up deciding not to follow though in case the tow yard reported it stolen but I’ll never forget those couple days of us sneaking around in the mud and googling tow driver liability.
Throughout the next few months he gave me the space to be as vulnerable, sad, angry as I needed and never asked me to show up any differently but always tried to make me laugh and smile, sending me late night messages after we’d hang out telling me how good it was seeing me start to become myself again. We’d go skiing and for walks in the forest, or if we were in a weird mood just stay in bed all day and eat dominos and watch our favourite JJ Abrams shows, or go out to sing Karaoke and tear up the dance floor. I remember one time the host called all of us up at the end for a finale of Barbie Girl because he said we had brought the party and he wanted us back every week, but the truth was, was that Mike was the one who had brought that energy out of all of us.
My friend contacted me on Tuesday morning to tell me what happened to Mike and I was on the way to one of my oldest friends weddings which we had at one point talked about going to together. It felt like i had been sucker punched because Mike was so full of life that I had never pictured a world where he wasn’t in it. He once got me a totem coin that said strength at a time when I really didn’t know who I was. I asked him why he got me one with strength and he said it was because that was how he saw me and thinks of me after everything and that if I held it with me I would be reminded that Im strong enough to do all these things on my own. The last time I saw him he was telling me how excited he was for me to be an aunt to a nephew who was born on Wednesday. I wanted to show up for my friend and sister but honestly didn’t know how I was going to manage to be happy for them knowing that I would never get to grab dinner or go on a hike with him again and fill him in on everything.
I went to his memorial in Kitchener and as awful as it felt, it was amazing how much you could feel him in that space with all the people he’d gifted with his presence in their life singing his favourite Karaoke songs and shotgunning beer around photos of him. Where I felt him most was in his cousins eulogy because it made me realize that what Mike had done for me he did for every single person in his life. He saw the best version of us even when we didn’t and looked for ways to lift us up to that place. He brought laughter, and adventure, and a little bit of mischief because he knew it was good for the soul. And he truly did shine a spotlight on everyone he met.
I decided I was going to do everything I could to shine the spotlight on my friend the way Mike did, so I ran every errand for her, and helped her with the catering issues, took all the silly photos, and danced to every Shania Twain song like he would have. As it got later where I normally would have gone to bed, I stayed up and did shrooms with the brides brother in law because I know Mike wouldn’t have said no, and held the brides hair and dress when she took too many shots with her in laws, and stayed up at the bonfire watching the stars with the groom till the early hours of the morning because I knew that was what Mike would have done. Even when he’s gone he brought me this beautiful day with my friend because anyone who knew him knows that you could write a whole book series on the good days you had with Mike and you’d still have more to tell.
I think I’m going to be searching for Mike in everywhere I go for the rest of my life, because he lived so fully, that there are so many moments and memories and places he left with us. It will always feel wrong that he isn’t here to make more but I truly believe that he’s there in every person he ever made laugh, or gave a tour to, or just sat with when they needed a friend. We will always miss and love you Mike xoxo
I believe this photo is of Mike on a monopod, it’s from the right time and set up in the same way he told me. We unfortunately were both being low technology at the time so we had no photos together.
I met Mike in June 2021 when we were both volunteering at a series of remote work camps on Vancouver Island but I sort of met him 3 times. We would use nicknames at the camps and originally we were living on different sites so we had only communicated by satellite device. Mike was at a camp with some pretty draining work going on and I would check in with him every morning and night to see how everyone was doing, what had happened that day, and check what supplies I could get them. Despite everything going on, he was often full of joy and excitement, once playing Jack Johnson on his speaker and dancing for the entire camp to try to keep their spirits up.
A couple weeks later I was at a different camp. We were in a technical meeting that I needed to pay attention to what was being said but was also dealing with important sat messages coming in so I was distracted. At one point I heard someone suggest something dangerous and I spoke up to say that wouldn’t work and then went back to messages. Afterwards this person I didn’t know pulled me aside and was like, I get you, you’re very big and small picture at the same time. He had changed his nickname but filled me in on who he was from the messages and we smiled and gave each other a big hug. That night there was a mixup and I ended up on night watch by myself. When Mike found out the next morning, he came to find me and told me to come find him if that ever happened again because he didn’t want me out there alone. I’ve spent most of my life being the one who had to show up for everyone or with people needing something from me, and all of a sudden there was this random person I didn’t know who it felt like saw me and appreciated me for exactly who I was and just wanted to show up for me.
We spent the next 7 weeks mostly on the same site. Often from 6am-2am, we’d spend our days dealing with a hundred small emergencies that would come up but Mike was always finding ways to keep people laughing. At the end of most days he and I would be the last ones up in our area, and we’d just sit in my van together smoking a joint and talking about anything and everything except for what had been going on where we were. We found out that we had almost met a number of times before this but had just missed each other. It felt like this special moment where for a second we could have been anywhere else, and we didn’t have to have the weight of anything on our shoulders. Then he’d park his van next to mine and we’d go to sleep and start the whole thing over the next day.
We had both ended up doing a lot of people managing when we really wanted to be running around in the woods so we would often cover for each other at camp to let the other one go off adventuring. Some of his mysterious adventures include the time he was building what they called a sparkle horse and needed me to get him a horse saddle and a sparkly dildo (the saddle I was successful with, unfortunately not so the dildo), when he achieved running the fastest recorded time on The Mario Trail, when he climbed a tree we called Owls nest to keep a birds eye view on the lower camp and found the only cell service for miles, when he helped organize a birthday dance party in the middle of the night for a friend right in front of a police line.
In mid august we shuffled around to different camps and sort of lost track of each other in the craziness, but in the middle of September he had found my info and sent me a message to check in. I had just lost a close friend and my grandfather and was really not doing well, quite honestly I was a shell of a person at the time. I don’t know if he knew that and was concerned or had just wanted to reconnect but the next couple months after that Mike saved my life over and over. I had gone back to Ontario for a bit and ended up staying there longer than I meant to because of some health and car issues. On days that I would struggle to leave my bed or even say a word Mike would send me a message asking if I wanted to have a call and all of a sudden I’d be talking politics, and what forest walks he’s been on, and new ideas he had for work for hours. I was deciding between spending the season in Revelstoke or Nelson and he kept saying what do I need to do to get you to come here with me for the season, I found you a really great place to work, I’ll tell you my real name if you come here. The honest answer was that I was terrified of how happy I felt when I was around Mike, it felt too good to be true, but my best friend reminded me that being able to be flexible and explore these things was one of the reasons I lived the life I did so in January I headed to Nelson.
When I walked in to his place we still didn’t know what each others real names were and had to introduce ourselves when he introduced me to Esteban who was living with him. My second or third night in town he asked me if I wanted to help him steal his van out of the impound lot. It had been towed for a second time and the first time they had parked it outside of the gate so he wanted us to grab it and drive it back to vancouver over night instead of paying for the tow fee again. At this point in time I was pretty much agoraphobic and only felt safe in my van, but Mike made me feel safe enough to go scouting tow lots in the middle of the night because it felt like nothing could happen while I was with him. He used to laugh and say, it’s fine Jess we’re just starting your exposure therapy early. So we went to the lot around 8, waited for the dog to be taken for a walk, and then snuck down to see where his van was with me being his scout, making terrible bird sounds at each other when we needed to communicate. All of a sudden Mike popped out of the darkness in a crouching/crawling position and we ran back down the road and back to his place to plan the heist. Because the car was under his company we ended up deciding not to follow though in case the tow yard reported it stolen but I’ll never forget those couple days of us sneaking around in the mud and googling tow driver liability.
Throughout the next few months he gave me the space to be as vulnerable, sad, angry as I needed and never asked me to show up any differently but always tried to make me laugh and smile, sending me late night messages after we’d hang out telling me how good it was seeing me start to become myself again. We’d go skiing and for walks in the forest, or if we were in a weird mood just stay in bed all day and eat dominos and watch our favourite JJ Abrams shows, or go out to sing Karaoke and tear up the dance floor. I remember one time the host called all of us up at the end for a finale of Barbie Girl because he said we had brought the party and he wanted us back every week, but the truth was, was that Mike was the one who had brought that energy out of all of us.
My friend contacted me on Tuesday morning to tell me what happened to Mike and I was on the way to one of my oldest friends weddings which we had at one point talked about going to together. It felt like i had been sucker punched because Mike was so full of life that I had never pictured a world where he wasn’t in it. He once got me a totem coin that said strength at a time when I really didn’t know who I was. I asked him why he got me one with strength and he said it was because that was how he saw me and thinks of me after everything and that if I held it with me I would be reminded that Im strong enough to do all these things on my own. The last time I saw him he was telling me how excited he was for me to be an aunt to a nephew who was born on Wednesday. I wanted to show up for my friend and sister but honestly didn’t know how I was going to manage to be happy for them knowing that I would never get to grab dinner or go on a hike with him again and fill him in on everything.
I went to his memorial in Kitchener and as awful as it felt, it was amazing how much you could feel him in that space with all the people he’d gifted with his presence in their life singing his favourite Karaoke songs and shotgunning beer around photos of him. Where I felt him most was in his cousins eulogy because it made me realize that what Mike had done for me he did for every single person in his life. He saw the best version of us even when we didn’t and looked for ways to lift us up to that place. He brought laughter, and adventure, and a little bit of mischief because he knew it was good for the soul. And he truly did shine a spotlight on everyone he met.
I decided I was going to do everything I could to shine the spotlight on my friend the way Mike did, so I ran every errand for her, and helped her with the catering issues, took all the silly photos, and danced to every Shania Twain song like he would have. As it got later where I normally would have gone to bed, I stayed up and did shrooms with the brides brother in law because I know Mike wouldn’t have said no, and held the brides hair and dress when she took too many shots with her in laws, and stayed up at the bonfire watching the stars with the groom till the early hours of the morning because I knew that was what Mike would have done. Even when he’s gone he brought me this beautiful day with my friend because anyone who knew him knows that you could write a whole book series on the good days you had with Mike and you’d still have more to tell.
I think I’m going to be searching for Mike in everywhere I go for the rest of my life, because he lived so fully, that there are so many moments and memories and places he left with us. It will always feel wrong that he isn’t here to make more but I truly believe that he’s there in every person he ever made laugh, or gave a tour to, or just sat with when they needed a friend. We will always miss and love you Mike xoxo
