Big Mike By Sheila Clancy

Donnie Nunley CC




Big Mike

He died with a needle in his arm, in a twisted blanket mess of unmade bed. Surrounded by red big gulp cups watermarking every nearby surface, ashtrays overflowing with cigarettes he was forever and never quitting, and a cat litter box growing impossibly tall stalagmite shit towers of neglect. 

Just downstairs from my aunt who loved him. Chose him. When he was an infant and his birth mother chose not to mother but to surrender her curly blonde blue-eyed boy who never outgrew his soft baby face, covering it with mustache and beard to no avail. Forever looking like a child in a Halloween costume, toddler in his dad’s shoes. 

He spent decades not surrendering to AA’s higher power, to a jail program meant to reform, nor Catholic priest threatening hell. Progressing from teenage Budweisers stolen from avocado green garage fridge to weed bought and smoked, shivering at high school bus stop, to eventually stealing from my aunt’s purse to buy the fentanyl laced heroin that would kill him in our it-could-never-happen-here small town. 

He was my first cousin, first friend, first to smile, to laugh; the only to worry when we raced go carts and minibikes down mile long drive. When we built a zip line from barn to pond over an electric fence, harrow tractor and holly trees. 

Mike holding us at the top of that drive and zip line, counting minutes ‘til collision risk lessened, our own waterslide lifeguard. Holding us when we fell, patiently picking out thorns, gravel, splinters, sitting with us in silence when we had no words, when February loss upon loss gutted us. Our grandfather when I was five, older sister when I was six, great grandfather at seven. He offered not words but solace. An animal whisperer finding homeless kittens, rabbits, downy ducks and once a baby raccoon, bringing them to our farm and laps; rescuing us again and again. 

Sometime in the 1980’s he sat in the seaside restaurant where I waitressed in preppy pink polo shirt, apple green apron and khaki shorts, a J. Crew ad with a cocktail tray. He a tattooed Harley gang member in flannel and leather, motorcycle boots and wallet chain; completely out of place in the field of Vineyard Vines Nantucket reds, sockless loafers and blue whaled belts. No one believing when I said, “that’s my cousin.” Even I was unsure. 

Then that easy smile, the dimples, a genuine hug, no air between us. His eyes on me for the rest of the night, jumping to his feet anytime a patron was too drunk, too close, too familiar. A lumbering bear moving with lightning speed. One hand reaching for waistband weapon, the other reaching for me, silently checking “are you okay?”

Me never knowing how far from okay he was, how close his demons, how strong my regret would grow.

Until my aunt found him and this in her basement, asking “do you think it’s appropriate to share?” 

He wrote it at fifteen. 
I answered, “I’ve never felt anything more appropriate,” and his childhood best friend read it at his funeral. He was fifty-nine. 

LIFE

Life is fun and well worthwhile, as long as you approach
each day with a smile. People laugh and cry each
day hoping to find a better way. Love is the key to all
mankind, life would be better if we kept this in mind.
People who feel lonely and blue might want to say, “I love you.” 
People who live with hate on their mind, might find
themselves on a fire line. Love is the answer, kindness is
the key; find these two things and you’ll find me. ​

I should have. 


That’s all I think and feel now. I should have reached out. I should have checked in. I may not 

have made a dent in the fight against the addiction, depression and anxiety that shortened his 

life but I could have simply sat with him in the abyss. 

My aunt wrote a few days after he passed:  “I believe God knew Mike was near the end of his ability to cope with his life in a general way and was in danger of falling prey to his demons again, so although I wish God provided a different answer to my prayers, I do believe he answered them.” As a parent I don’t know how anyone survives this, and as a lapsed Catholic, I’m awed by her ability to pray, to have faith and to believe he is at peace. I hope he is. My sweet, gentle, poet cousin dubbed “Bubba” by his childhood friends has earned that. 

As for me, I’m vowing to live my life in a way that never again leaves me feeling “I should have,” and to savor each moment of love and kindness that come my way. As instructed, when I find those two things I’ll know I’ve found my Bubba and smile.

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Sheila Clancy lives in Rehoboth Beach DE with the greatest black lab in the world. She was raised in a horse racing family by an alcoholic father the likes of Frank Gallagher in Shameless and learned early that writing and humor were great escapes. She wrote a humor column in Steeplechase Times for years and is now an active member of the Rehoboth Beach Writers Guild. She’s a full time caregiver to her 91-year-old father who has been in recovery for over forty years.
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