When Mike and I met in person for the first time, I fed him dinner but we didn't really touch. I assumed that people probably randomly touched him since he was in a bed and had to look up at people all the time. So I didn't really touch his hand until we had known each other for awhile. But when I did, it was one of those moments that felt like you've felt that feeling before. It wasn't like sparks flying or that kind of thing..... it was an "I know you" kind of thing. With every experience you have in life, your brain makes a neuron connection. I believe that once that connection has been made, if it has a strong reaction with you, your body remembers it even if your mind doesn't seem to. Mike and I knew we had a mutual facebook friend in Jessika (she is how we met) but there were others too. One of my friends posted that he was performing in a fund raiser for Mike..... I had no idea that they knew each other. I had met this friend, Lee, years before I met Mike. Mike and Lee had known each other in law school. Mike mentioned to me once that he had taken ballroom dance lessons before. He took the lessons after his ALS diagnosis..... he took them from another friend of mine, Jeff. As unlikely as it seems to me that we would have ever met each other ..... I think we did. One night Mike was trying to decide what he would like to eat that night. He mentioned a place in Grandview that he liked going to .....it was the same place I always went. We figured this would have been around 2008. Not only that, but we both ordered the same thing all the time..... the polenta from Tratt on Grandview Ave. I'm convinced that he and I must have been there at the same time or walked past each other on Grandview Avenue or at the very least been at Comfest at the same time. There was some connection there that wasn't new. Or maybe it wasn't even in this lifetime..... I went to a pastlife regression seminar once where I was guided to revisit myself in 3 other lives. I did have 3 separate experiences that I relived as to whether they actually happened or if it was even me, who the heck really knows? But one of them I was standing overlooking a wide open space of green land watching the sun as it was rising and I was standing there with a man. We were both clothed in animal skin and we were warriors and we were holding hands, very united. Touching Mike's hand that first time reminded me of that memory in the seminar. Again.... who the heck knows... certainly not me.... but I am just retelling my experiences here. :)
The connection that Mike and I had made it easier for us to work together as a team. We could easily read each other. This came in handy at the hospital and was witnessed by Father Dean. Father Dean is a Priest who works for the hospital. He met Mike as a patient when Mike could still talk and get around some. They formed a very strong friendship. Father Dean loved bringing in guys in seminary school (that probably had a different name) to meet Mike. They would discuss Thomas for hours. When I met Father Dean for the first time, he really paid no attention to me. I wasn't offended, he was there for Mike. A few more hospitalizations and Father Dean gave me his number so that I could let him know when Mike was admitted. I'm not Catholic. I always respected Mike's religion and I would participate in the prayers. When Mike and I talked about Father Dean we spoke of him as one of those souls who you just know are something special. I told him that when Father Dean walks into the room, his energy/aura .... whatever.... fills up the room. If you open yourself up to what you feel permeating the room, you will feel peace. Even though Mike and I disagreed on where that energy came from, we both knew it was undeniable. That last week of Mike's life, Father Dean was there with me a lot. When the neurologist gave me his findings and asked what I would like to do for Mike, I looked over and Father Dean had just walked in the room. He saw the look on my face and took me to another room. It's the first time he and I had ever been alone. He let me cry, he let me talk, he let me remember, he let me philosophize (that's a word, right?). That's when he told me that he could see the connection between us and that if I was now feeling that I had lost that connection that I should trust that. He listened to me as I struggled with what dies first.... the mind or the body.... Once he knew that I had given up my POA and he knew why, he went out of his way to assure me that he too believed that Mike was no longer suffering. The day after our first talk alone, he came up to me bedside with Mike and said that he needed to apologize to me. He had a tear down his cheek when he told me that he felt like he had failed me the day before because he was not acting like a Priest, he was acting like a man who was losing a friend and that he wanted to apologize to me for not praying with me. Not sharing his faith, it hadn't bothered me at all. But it showed me again how much of an impact Mike had had on people who knew him. Father Dean is the reason I was able to keep my promise to Mike at the end. Because he had given me his phone number, he had mine. He called me and told me that even though he wasn't a medically trained man, it is his belief that if I wanted to be with Mike when his body has given up that I would need to be there soon. Father Dean knew what our connection was and what it meant to both of us. He wanted that for both of us..... that's why he called me. I will always be forever grateful to him.
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