Memory Gospel.
<img src="http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq96/PunchedMonkey/MikesLast.jpg" border="0" alt="Mike (my Big Little Brother).">
This is Michael Naisbitt. He preferred the name Mike, just as I prefer Steve or Stevie (from some people) to Stephen. Mike was my younger Brother. In the early hours of this day, four years ago, he died suddenly from an Asthma induced heart attack, brought on by severe hypoxia (lack of oxygen in the blood).
I've been dirided in the past for emoting too much in the things that I post to MySpace. Death and the nature of loss are subjects very close to my heart and ones that, today of all days, I want to share with - well, anyone who cares to stay a while and listen.
<img src="http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq96/PunchedMonkey/m3_edited-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Close as ever!">
We were close as kids, Mike and Me. His loss was totally unexpected and certainly untimely. I have always been very bitter about his death, and will remain so - because I chose to be. In many ways I remain lost without him, though his presense and influence live on in different people in my life and in different ways. Mike himself wasn't one for sharing his feelings. He was an intensely guarded private man. His words counted when he did speak, unlike me - the Gobshite older Brother. Mike wasn't in love with the sound of his own voice like I am.
In the October of 2004 we'd gone to New York City in the US for a holiday. It was a working holiday for Mike, of sorts. He was looking at ad agencies - wishing to go work in the States someday. We had a great time over there, seeing just how motivated and hard working Americans are (at least in that city). New Yorkers worked hard, and played harder. The trip was seven days of warm sunny inspiration - to us both. Two weeks after we returned from America in high spirits, I lost Mike.
<img src="http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq96/PunchedMonkey/m1.jpg"...
Memory Gospel.
<img src="http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq96/PunchedMonkey/MikesLast.jpg" border="0" alt="Mike (my Big Little Brother).">
This is Michael Naisbitt. He preferred the name Mike, just as I prefer Steve or Stevie (from some people) to Stephen. Mike was my younger Brother. In the early hours of this day, four years ago, he died suddenly from an Asthma induced heart attack, brought on by severe hypoxia (lack of oxygen in the blood).
I've been dirided in the past for emoting too much in the things that I post to MySpace. Death and the nature of loss are subjects very close to my heart and ones that, today of all days, I want to share with - well, anyone who cares to stay a while and listen.
<img src="http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq96/PunchedMonkey/m3_edited-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Close as ever!">
We were close as kids, Mike and Me. His loss was totally unexpected and certainly untimely. I have always been very bitter about his death, and will remain so - because I chose to be. In many ways I remain lost without him, though his presense and influence live on in different people in my life and in different ways. Mike himself wasn't one for sharing his feelings. He was an intensely guarded private man. His words counted when he did speak, unlike me - the Gobshite older Brother. Mike wasn't in love with the sound of his own voice like I am.
In the October of 2004 we'd gone to New York City in the US for a holiday. It was a working holiday for Mike, of sorts. He was looking at ad agencies - wishing to go work in the States someday. We had a great time over there, seeing just how motivated and hard working Americans are (at least in that city). New Yorkers worked hard, and played harder. The trip was seven days of warm sunny inspiration - to us both. Two weeks after we returned from America in high spirits, I lost Mike.
<img src="http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq96/PunchedMonkey/m1.jpg" border="0" alt="Baby Mike - drawing already!">
He had the Asthma attack while I slept. I'd been ill for several days. Off work with a bad back and in some considerable pain. sleeping was something I did alot of. We'd been having some painting done and the strong chemicals in the wood gloss set Mike's chest off. He was wheezing at 9pm when I retired to bed, asking me to stay up with him while he worked on some graphic design project that now I can't even remember. I refused, in pain and grouchy. He cursed me and stormed out of my room, pissed at me. I was awoken two hours later by my Father, telling me Mike was turning blue and unable to breathe. They'd called the paramedics. I shook myself from sleep and went to see him, hunched over his drawing table hissing for breath. His lips were blue like his cheeks. He tried to say something to me, face resigned in it's expression. I just stood there, helpless. They came and took him away in an ambulance. My Mother and Father went with him, while I paced the house cursing him for an arrogant shit - who should've kept away from paint fumes like I told him.
Two hours later a nurse called me from the general hospital and asked me to come down as soon as possible. I heard John, my Father, in the background. When the nurse asked him to speak to me and he refused, saying: 'I can't, just get him down here,' I knew something was wrong. But you hope - right?
At the hospital no one would tell me a fucking thing. They ushered me into a small doctor's lounge and then after a few moments my Father came in and told me. He knelt on the carpet in front of me braced me with his arms and said: 'He's gone. You've lost your best friend. . .' before he broke down. What happened after that I don't remember. I do remember wanting to punch my Dad for telling me in that way. I'm not going to debate the right or wrong in that with you. The next thing I knew my Mam was around me and the ER doc came to see me and asked if I'd like to see my Brother. I told her no, cause then I'd have to believe it. I called my wife (then girlfriend) Diana-Elizabeth (Diz) and told her the news, then reluctantly went into the cleared room in the ER to see Mike. He was laid out on a guerney with his arms folded across his chest. Eyes closed, hair still immaculately styled, skin milk white and cold as clay. I stroked his hair with a shaking hand, then I fell to the floor. On my hands and knees I crawled around, shaking, crying: 'What am I going to do now Bro? What am I going to do now. . .'
So how do you sum up a man's life in a few hundred words for those who did not have the privilege of knowing him?
That's the question I've been asking myself while writing this.
I think I have some semblance of an answer. Those of you close to me'll know there's no such thing as a short answer where I'm concerned, but while I have your attention, I'll give it a try.
In your twenties death isn't something that's on your mind much, if at all. Mike and I only ever touched on the subject - either drunkenly or casually during late night benders. The one thing we did decide on back then however was what would happen if one outlived the other. Whoever survived would speak personally of the other, not leave it to some sterile pseudo-religous bollocks from a priest. As it happened the honour , the painful terrible duty, was mine. I wrote my Brother's Eulogy and gave it, just as he would've done mine. Believe me when I tell you it's an honour I'd rather not have had to fulfil, but as he used to say: 'Life is a test of character. You play the hand you've been dealt!' Personally I don't believe in playing the hand you're dealt. I believe if you're unhappy you should try and change that. If you have a dream it is your obligation to pursue it. But I also have the experience to know change is not always just up to you. . .
To begin with I wasn't sure a few words would be enough, either here or during the funeral service, to do Mike justice. There really is only one word that sprang to mind (both then and now) when I think about him:
Integrity.
Integrity is born from principles, and having the strength of character to adhere to them, no matter what the personal cost, or obstacles life puts in your way.
Mike was my younger brother but also my best and closest friend.
For as long as I can remember, he had a strange kind of wisdom - way beyond his twenty-five years. The things he'd come up with and say, the sage advice, was always from some place beyond his age or life experience. The family would say 'He's been here before!' And I believe they were right.
As a result of this - the dynamic of our relationship was close and deep. Everything with us was like a private joke. I even called him my 'Big Little Brother.' Even when we fought or got mad at each other - which was rare - it didn't last for long. And while traditionally you're supposed to look up to the eldest, it was I who always looked up to Michael.
I still do.
Mike was everything I ever wanted to be: Smart. Funny. Charming (when he felt like it), not to mention always immaculately dressed! But more than that I admired him. He always had a driven self motivation to succeed that I'm sorely lacking. There was a burning will inside him to create something out of nothing and he did - as much and as often as he could. He was an artist, who didn't suffer fools gladly and whose respect was hard won.
He would ride me all the time, constantly pushing me with my writing - trying to get me to work harder towards my goals. He was all about having dreams in life and chasing after them with every fibre of his being. I defy anyone to blame me for my bitterness that his death robbed him of all that, as well as me of him. . .
Mike was also about honesty, friendship and moral courage.
The word 'brutal' always came before 'truth' with him. As any of his closest friends knew: you never asked his opinion unless you really wanted to learn something (oftentimes cutting) about yourself.
In his own life when there was a right and wrong path to take Mike took the right one - every time, no matter how much easier the wrong path may've been. You could go to him with any moral dilemma and without exception he knew what the right course of action was, and he told you - whether you liked it or not. And as long as you did the same, in both your dealings with him and others - he was the most loyal person you could ever have the fortune to know.
I state the glaringly obvious when I say his loss remains an open wound to me and my family, as well as those who respected him.
I've spent the last four years trying to be worthy of him.
Up to now I have failed, in so many ways.
<img src="http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq96/PunchedMonkey/m4_edited-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Last Stand (NYC Oct 4th 2004)">
Why is that? you may ask. Well, if he were here he'd be working his arse off . So, to remember him best, and make the pain go away - I had vowed in front of all our family and friends at the funeral to simply stay true to his guiding principles. They're good principles to have I think. But at some point or another I've failed him in every one of them. I'm not as strong as he was, and I know it. And, because of my dogged refusal to let go of my bitterness, the pain for me does not go away. It plagues me, ever a part of every thought. Some might say I'm my own worst enemy : at constant odds with the healing process. My view (rightly or wrongly) is that with certain damage - there is no healing. Four years on and I'm still angry - and bitter? Acid is like water to me. I have had my dearest blood stolen from me, and there is no one to blame, no one to punish, no one to hate. But I hate anyway. Maybe, in some small measure, I hate myself - for being the one that lived. And the one I inevitably punish is myself. Knowing this still makes me incapable of stopping.
After he died I made my brother a promise: To live the rest of my life pursuing the dreams we both had. To entertain through art. His was visual. Mine is the written word. Mike liked to hope that whatever he did counted for something, and if we follow that lead, as I've tried to do, then I know in my heart that he'll feel (wherever his soul exists now) that even his death counted for something - that something good came from something so painful.
<img src="http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq96/PunchedMonkey/DSCN0066CU.jpg" border="0" alt="Mike's Memorial (21-10-2008)">
Because, when it comes to life, you're born on your own - and you die on your own. What you make of your time in between, who you chose to share it with, is only really up to you. . .
<img src="http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq96/PunchedMonkey/MikesLast.jpg" border="0" alt="Mike (my Big Little Brother).">
This is Michael Naisbitt. He preferred the name Mike, just as I prefer Steve or Stevie (from some people) to Stephen. Mike was my younger Brother. In the early hours of this day, four years ago, he died suddenly from an Asthma induced heart attack, brought on by severe hypoxia (lack of oxygen in the blood).
I've been dirided in the past for emoting too much in the things that I post to MySpace. Death and the nature of loss are subjects very close to my heart and ones that, today of all days, I want to share with - well, anyone who cares to stay a while and listen.
<img src="http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq96/PunchedMonkey/m3_edited-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Close as ever!">
We were close as kids, Mike and Me. His loss was totally unexpected and certainly untimely. I have always been very bitter about his death, and will remain so - because I chose to be. In many ways I remain lost without him, though his presense and influence live on in different people in my life and in different ways. Mike himself wasn't one for sharing his feelings. He was an intensely guarded private man. His words counted when he did speak, unlike me - the Gobshite older Brother. Mike wasn't in love with the sound of his own voice like I am.
In the October of 2004 we'd gone to New York City in the US for a holiday. It was a working holiday for Mike, of sorts. He was looking at ad agencies - wishing to go work in the States someday. We had a great time over there, seeing just how motivated and hard working Americans are (at least in that city). New Yorkers worked hard, and played harder. The trip was seven days of warm sunny inspiration - to us both. Two weeks after we returned from America in high spirits, I lost Mike.
<img src="http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq96/PunchedMonkey/m1.jpg"...