It's been clear to me for many, many months that the prayers and good wishes of the extraordinary people we have had in our lives were making the impossible, possible - at times, even joyful. During the last weeks of his life, Tim and Kathy, Nan, Aaron, Michael S., Kathy Mac, Melissa, Mark and Maxine all gave him something special from their hearts. I have no doubt that there were others, especially his North Star Hospice and VNA Hospice teams - who eased his burdens during his final days. Even loving thoughts from far away reached him - he made sure that I knew this. This story is about an "up close and personal" gift. Bobbie A Gift From Maxine Shortly after we arrived in the desert this past April, I learned that Michael had invited a dear friend, the Rev. Dr. Maxine Kaye, to stay in our casita at the end of her term as interim pastor in Yuma, AZ. One might have preferred to have been consulted beforehand, but Michael was not one to allow his generous impulses to be short-circuited by someone else’s ideas of “the social niceties”.... For my part, some of the most fun I’ve had during our years in La Quinta has been taking classes from Dr. Max. Among her many talents, she is a truly gifted teacher. (Any teacher who can inspire a busy adult, with lots of “life stuff” to do, to spend 30+ hours on one week’s homework assignment because it was so fascinating and so much fun, is well beyond merely “gifted” and into the “master” level.) My concerns were that given the state of his health - which he refused to acknowledge most of the time - Michael might begin to find the presence of a third person in his daily life something of a stressor. As things turned out, some days he did seem less than pleased with how this arrangement was working out. The three of us would meet on the patio early in the day, while the temperature was more or less tolerable, for coffee and customary morning chat. More often than not, Maxine and I would soon start “giggling like little girls” over almost anything, while Michael was clearly in the mood for more serious and elevated conversation. One of the things Maxine and I share is to wake up most days with some song we can’t get out of our heads - as these are sometimes quite silly, or even bizarre, exchanging ‘wake-up songs’ often set off these less than welcome bouts of hilarity. Shortly before Michael made his transition, when he was well past being able to join us on the patio, Maxine woke up to “Something Wonderful” from The King and I. Her gift to Michael - and all of us present - was an extraordinarily beautiful a cappella rendition at his bedside: This is a man who thinks with his heart, and his heart is not always wise.* This is a man who stumbles and falls, but this is a man who tries. This is a man you’ll forgive and forgive and help and protect as long as you live. He will not always say, what you would have him say, but now and then he’ll say, something wonderful. The thoughtless things he’ll do, will hurt and worry you, Then all at once he’ll do, something wonderful. He has a thousand dreams that won’t come true - You know that he believes in them and that’s enough for you. You’ll always go along, defend him when he’s wrong, and tell him when he’s strong, he is wonderful. He’ll always need your love, and so he’ll get your love, A man who needs your love, can be wonderful. (Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II - 1951) * I think that perhaps - and not unlike the king - Michael’s heart was always wise, but the same could not always be said for some of those “head trips”. B.