I love you

I remember it like it was yesterday....I was sitting in my car in the Wheeling Walmart parking lot- counting my cash to see if I had enough for what I needed at the store. I was not in a good place in my life. I single mom, with a baby, trying to get an education and fight my way out of poverty. While having an affair with a man who was waaaay too old for me and technically married. Fucked up? Slightly. But I knew there was something about him, I couldn't resist. I checked my email, because that's how Mike and I communicated with each other (text messages cost too much). And I read this email from him telling me to listen to a REO Speedwagon song, called "Like You Do" "It's about this girl I know and how I feel about her" He wrote. 

For those of you who don't know the song, it's basically this guy talking about all the women he's encountered in his life. Everything from hookers, to church women to couples in love. The hook to the song is him saying " But I've never seen a woman. Who makes me feel, like you do" 

When I read this- I was slightly confused. So I called him. "Roddie (his nickname), who is this song for??" Secretly I was hoping it was about me but ya know being a girl who's life was completely jacked up at the time- I had my doubts.

"Who do you think?" He said, "Linny....I love you." 

That was the first time I had ever heard him say those 3 precious words. I love you. From then until now, we've said it to each other probably a million times. 

We could be in a major knock down drag out fight and I could end the whole thing by walking up to him, kissing him and saying "I love you". To which he would throw his hands up and say "Lucy! (He thought I was like Lucille Ball)You make me frickin crazy! But I love you too"

The last text message I got from Mike was him saying "I love you." For no reason, other than it being a Monday and him wanted to tell me he was thinking about me. 

A couple days after Mike's stroke, I was in his hospital room early in the morning with him. We had made the decision to go ahead with the brain surgery that would hopefully improve his condition. There was a possibility that it wouldn't work, or we that would loose him that day. I started having a conversation with him in my head as the nurse went about giving him more medication and doing her duties. He was completely out of it, not able to communicate or move. I just sat there and talked in my head about what a whirlwind romance we had, how lucky I was to have him in my life, how sexy he was even in the stupid hospital gown. How I couldn't ask for a better best friend, or father for my child. I started to feel stupid, just sitting there in silence, and not saying anything. Having this conversation in my head, like all of the sudden he had the ability to read my thoughts because he was in a coma. The only thing I could think to say out loud (no matter how cliche) was "I love you boo". 

"I love you" a raspy whisper escaped him. 

The nurse spun around, "Did you hear that?" She said, "That was him wasn't it? There's no way." She started checking monitors and checking his neuro functioning. 

The tears flowed down my face, and I shook my head and said "Yeah it was him" 

I clung onto his hand as hard as I possibly because deep down I knew that would be the last time I would hear him say those three precious words from him ever. From the Wheeling Walmart Parking Lot to here- we had lived a lifetime together. 

That moment, no matter how tragic and unbelievably sad it was, has come to be one of my favorite Mike Moments. Because it speaks so much to who he was. Only my Michael would defy the odds, by fighting through medication, a blood clot in his swelling brain, and achieve the medically impossible to muster out 3 magical words to me that I needed from him more than anything in the world.  That's who he was, an amazing fighter but an even bigger lover.