Michael; loving husband, special dad, treasured step dad, crazy grandad and great grandad. Mick was a friend to many......
Wait, what?
For 19 years I've affectionately known my step dad as Mike. But if everyone else knows him as Mick, how did me and my brother come to know him as Mike? My mum wasn't even sure.
Sunday 18th September 2016 will be a date forever etched in my memory. We'd spent the day struggling over the crossword but he seemed tired so we all left the hospice early to let him get some sleep. An hour and a half later we got the call we'd all been dreading. It was unexpected. It was heart breaking. It was the day we had to say goodbye. And it was the day that would forevermore leave us with unanswered questions.
What would he think of the next season of Game of Thrones? Which horse would he put his money on in the Grand National? What would he think of the Hawaiian shirts at his funeral? And, how did we come to know him as Mike?
Questions that only he could answer. Questions for the future and questions from the past. Those everlasting question marks.
How we came to know him as Mike probably isn't important, it's merely a curiosity. To my mum he was husband. To his children he was dad. To his grandchildren he was crazy grandad. To me and my brother he was Mike. And that's pretty special. Because to everyone else he was Mick, but to us he was so much more. He loved us like we were his own. He stood proudly at our graduations and he talked to his friends about how we were getting on in life; something I didn't know until it was too late to tell him how much that means.
Michael; loving husband, special dad, treasured step dad, crazy grandad and great grandad. Mick was a friend to many but Mike was unique to only two. We have forevermore been left us with unanswered questions. We will never know how we came to know him as Mike. But we will always know how blessed we were to have known him. Memories of love will far outlast that curiosity and I'm okay with that.
