About Mikey

This is a piece I did at the fundraiser last month. Everything I perform gets written long-hand in a marble Mead notebook, and I have a tendency to lose those notebooks. I don't want to lose this piece, so I'm putting it up here.

I'd like to talk for a second about Mikey. My sister Jill met Mikey DiPersio when she was 15. He was a Saint Bernard of a kid; big, goofy, always smiling, and always doing his best to make sure you were smiling, too. He loved Jill tremendously. He was fiercely loyal, and would do anything for her. And she was completely not into him. From the big sister perspective, he was perfect. Because we were obnxious teenagers, my sister and I weren't that close back then, so I was glad for Mikey, because I knew he'd take care of her in ways that I couldn't. He protected her from the jerks she dated, and was a shoulder to cry on when she figured out that they were, in fact, jerks. And he took care of me, too. When the stereo on my Buick Century needed to be replaced, he spent hours in the driveway, calibrating things to make sure the bass would make the windows shake and expand, but not explode. Which is important.

Then Mikey started to get sick. Because we were kids, we didn't worry all that much, but when a guy as big and strong as Mikey gets as skinny and drawn as he got, even a kid knows something's wrong.

I was with Jill when she got the call. We were up in her room, and she was on her princess phone. It was a clear one, and you could see the pink and purple wires inside. She picked it up, and for the rest of my life I will remember the way her head dropped and she crumpled against the desk she was sitting on. I will never forget the way all the blood left her face until she was as transparent as the receiver in her hand. And I will never, for the rest of my life, forget the sound of her voice as she said "What kind of cancer?", as though there were a response to that question that would make everything okay again.

Because we were kids, we didn't pay a lot of attention to medical terms. But we knew it was cancer, we knew it was in his blood, and we knew it was bad. And just like Mikey had always been there for her when she needed him, Jill sat by his side when he was sick. And when he got better. And when he got sick again. The second time hit him hard and fast, and and not long afterward, at 21 years old, Mikey died. That was 11 years ago, and I know not a day goes by that my sister doesn't think of him and miss him.

And that's why I'm running this race. To thank Mikey for being a brother to my sister when she needed one, and to do everything I can to make sure no one else's little sister ever has to lose someone they love.