if you know Mike

[davemerrill]

If you know Mike Horne you know he had a heart attack a few years ago, and last November he had a stroke, and he was recovering from that, getting his speech and mobility back. Late Saturday night he had another heart attack and he didn't make it out of this one.

I just have no words for this one. Carol has a heartbreaking story of finding out after the fact. I think of how we were s'posed to go out there for Halloween and we didn't, and how we were planning to go out there around Valentine's Day to see everybody and see how Mike was doing. All the coulda shouldas.

I don't know if there's going to be a memorial in Boston or if Mike's family is going to ship him back to California for burial. Obviously if there's a Boston thing we're going to be there.

Mike was irrepressible. He's the kind of guy who would leave a discussion about what to do and just go do whatever it was we were debating on how to do. He'd bug anybody about anything. When I first visited Boston in 2000 he gave me an impromptu lecture on historical buildings and happenings as we walked through downtown after July 4 fireworks - and this is a guy who didn't grow up in Boston, mind you. But he knew everything about the city. I never left his presence without handfuls of DVDs of weird foreign films and forgotten 3D epics. The TV was always on and he was always talking, either in a conversation or just monologuing. Except the telephone, he hated to talk on the telephone.

And now he's gone. There's a big hole and it won't ever be filled. Maybe time will sand the edges down so they aren't so sharp, but that hole is staying right there.



I don't have a photo of Mike where he isn't making a goofy face and this one's no exception. I'm told it's because he hated having his picture taken, but he never hesitated to mug for my camera. I wish he was still around to make goofy faces. I wish he was still around.

Comments

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

I feel horrible. I have no memory of Mike. I should. Then I stopped that pity train and wondered if I ever actually met him, because I wasn't able to attend AWA when most of the D-fest parties were going on. I know that at least one time (2011) Mike and Carol weren't able to attend and we missed them.

Just crap. Another person that should not be dead. I'm really getting sick of this.

I mean, if we were all in our 70s I could accept it but not like this, not...

Crap.

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

You might have met him at AWA 5. I know you guys were on the same email lists, etc.

It's just not right, this whole thing. So much left undone for him, for us, for everyone who knew him. He was looking forward to being a cranky oldster and making life hell for the younger generation.

Still really raw.

[supermeowra.livejournal.com]

We had a fine bar trivia gang going of Neil, Mike, Carol, Christian, and me. Mike was the team ringer. He was also responsible for one of our best team names, Latino=Hydra after he was going on about Latinos being synonymous with hydra. Once you got him going about something, he could just bullshit masterfully about anything. The last time we hung out before his stroke, he very politely argued the case about how we should pick up his brunch tab. Which we did. I took it for granted that he was going to get better and we'd watch more movies, eat more food, have more fun adventures involving food, but no. Very, very raw. Almost lost my shit a few times at work. For as shitty as I feel, I know Carol is dealing with something I can't even imagine.

[mr-sadhead.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry. God love and keep the goofs.

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

I keep remembering how I'd say something dopey and he'd just point the finger at me and say "Fuck you, Dave!" with such authority and at the same time such a overblown, eyebrow-raising sense of pompous hyperbole that you couldn't take it seriously at all. Or we'd be doing some set up at a con and he'd decide to help and just walk around with a giant pile of stuff in his arms that we may or may not need at all until somebody told him to stop, and then he'd just drop whatever he had, whereever he was. I can't stop remembering this stuff, and it's funny, but it's painful. Maybe it's all we have left.