My Friend, Mike, Died

 My friend, Mike Malovic, far left in the picture, just died. Cancer.

Mike was a good man. I moved to the Washington, D.C. area in 1992 and met Mike soon after at the St. Michael's choir. We were both military, so we connected in that way, and he asked me if I kept my options open for business opportunities. I did. So we talked, and I joined his organization in Amway.

Now, I'm sorry if you had a bad Amway-experience, or, more likely: you heard that your mother's second cousin's friend-from-work-sister's girfriend "lost all her money in Amway and had to go live in Topeka, Kansas with her mom."

But my experience with Amway wasn't like that, and nor was Mike's, and here's why.

Mike cared. Mike cared for his family, and he knew he wasn't going to make it in the Washington DC-area off a sergeant's salary, and he knew he definitely wasn't going to make it off a sergeant's pension. So he looked at starting a business. He started a few, was successful in a few, but they still couldn't provide. He put the same amount of work into Amway that he put into his job and his other businesses, and Amway worked for him. So he shared that message of success with others, including me.

And here's the thing. Amway didn't work for me, because I didn't work Amway like Mike did. I played at it, tried it out, but I didn't work it like a full-time job, like Mike did, so I didn't become an Amway millionaire. But here's what I did get out of Amway: respect for people who worked at it, or at their businesses, respect for my Country, respect for my God, and my lovely wife. Pinky, Mike's wife, introduced me to Diane: "You know, Doug, Diane's really smart and sweet. You should talk to her. Like: now."

So, yeah: I'm not an Amway millionaire, like Mike may be, but here's the thing about Mike.

Mike cares.

Mike is a man who cares about you more than he cares about himself. He always has a word of encouragement, he always asks after you and your family, he always looks you in the eye when he shakes your hand, and he always treated me as a friend, whether I made him rich in Amway, or whether I didn't.

Because I didn't make him rich in Amway.

But.

I made him rich in life.

Mike is a very private, quiet person, and, for him, talking with people is hard, and tiring, and scary.

But here's something I learned from Mike, too.

You can live your life lonely, and alone, or you can talk with other people, and they can hurt you, yes, but they can change you in how you see the world as they see the world, and they can care, and they can hope, and they can dream, and they can enrich your life when they share that care, that hope, and those dreams with you.

That's what I learned from Mike. Introversion isn't an excuse. It wasn't for him, and, because of his example, it isn't for me. I learned my life is better when I make somebody's life better.

Today.

I learned that God put me on this Earth, today, to make somebody else's life better, and I ask myself, everyday: "Who did I make smile today?" and I better have an answer, today, by God, because I bet you anything, God will ask me the same question when I am called to task, like Mike was called to task.

Today.

My last visit with Mike breaks my heart, because I came prepared. I read up on him. I was going to ask him all about his life and adventures. "Sure," he said, "I was born in England, but I moved to the States when I was one year old. How is your dad? Is he okay?"

And from there, the conversation went, him asking about this or that, and commenting on how proud he was of me to work with the Air Force, to have my girls raised so polite and proper, to ...

It breaks my heart, that, to his dying breath, he didn't want to talk about himself, at all, he wanted to talk about me, and how I was faring in this world. Mike, he was done with this world, and ready for the next.

Mike, I know you're an Army man, but from this Coast Guardsman, I wish you, dear friend: fair winds and following seas.

God bless you, and keep you in His care.