I’ve battled with this post for almost a week. Ever since Dave Fleet DM’d me to let me know Michael had died (link is to his donation site, donate now, I did). I couldn’t find a point to it, given I had nothing to add to the conversation.

But still, part of me wants to wax poetic on how pathetically I deal with death, the other part wants to go on and on about Michael as a person. The first option is completely selfish. The second seems disingenious given how watered down the word “Friend” has become in social media. Especially since Michael and I rarely hung out, I didn’t know his family, and we never worked together.

But still, I do consider Michael a friend, in a world in which there are so precious few true friends Michael stood out. Based on the outpouring of caring, missing and emotion at his departure, it seems many others felt the same way. He was, as so many have said, “one of the few good ones”. I’m lucky to count so many of “the few good ones” as friends.

This post may not make any sense to anyone else, and that’s okay. Michael always encouraged the value of the word, even if the only value was the fact that they were spoken or written.

So I sit here at work, having come in early, to tell Michael I miss him. Not as much as his family misses him, who’s pain I can’t even begin to imagine. Not as much as his closest friends miss him, who will always feel a hole in their lives. Not even as much as his colleagues at work will miss him, who now have to find someone to wear entirely new shoes amongst their team (because nobody could fill Michael’s the way he did).

But, Michael, I still miss you. I don’t really care if it’s selfish or stupid, but I miss you. I don’t care if it’s too vulnerable to say in public, but I miss you. I don’t care if people think it’s disingenious, but I miss you.

You were and are an incredible person, and thank you for allowing me to call you Friend.

Goodbye, for now.