lifeomike.org | Pics o’ Mike

Pics o’ Mike

: Mike holds his cousin's baby, Liam, as Liam's dad, Matt, looks on. They're Shannon's three favorite men.

: Mike in a boat in Savannah

: Mike and Janet share a cuddle at a Krispy Kreme store in Savannah.

: Always the clown -- and often inappropriate. This was Mike's idea of a good pose with a statue of a gorilla on Jekyll Island, Ga.

: My friend Kathy gardner took this photo when Mike was 5.

: He was three days old here.

: Mid-December 1974.

: He was always laughing as a baby. And he never slept.

: At 8 months old, Mike already had a special relationship with my father.

: Danny was 4 and Mike was 2.

: On his second birthday -- before he got into the cake.

: My father shot a whole roll of film of Danny and Mike eating breakfast one morning. He told them the camera was broken so they wouldn't pose.

: It was never a neat activity, but then, nothing was with Mike.

: This was Mike's favorite Christmas, he said. He loved that dragon.

: He was 4 here.

: Mike loved to read. He had mastered simple books by the time he was 4.

: I injured my foot more than once on those stupid little cars.

: All dressed up. Somewhere there's the companion shot of Mike clowning around.

: Mike hugs my stepmother, his grammie Barbara, as my mother, Grandma Avis, looks on. The two are friends, and my mother was always invited to the family Christmas party.

: At my father's house for the annual Sunday-before-Christmas party.

: At a friend's house not long after the annual Halloween party. Mike found several pieces of costumes left behind and put them on.

: I don't know what he steppd on. That's Merlin with him.

: Probably dismantling something.

: This was probably about 1980 or 1981. He was in his my parents' living room with his cousin, Shannon.

: It always looked like a disaster area after he was done opening presents. He never thought to throw the gift wrap away.

: With Danny. And they weren't fighting.

: Mike feeds a goat at Roger Williams Park in Rhode Island.

: With his buddy Mark in Fair Lawn, NJ.

: After a fishing trip with my father. He ate the fish for breakfast.

: At the family Christmas party in 1984

: With Rob's Aunt Helen on our wedding day.

: He loved music and he loved being the center of attention, so he was happy to play the maracas with the band at our wedding reception.

: At Rob's and my wedding, Nov. 12, 1983.

: The second shot. He couldn't stay serious.

: With our friends Bill Demarest and Robin Bolson

: Mike at his eighth grade graduation.

: Mike playing with one of those wooded cup-and-ball toys. He never quite got the hang of it.

: I just found him like this and I happened to have the camera. He said he didn't know why he put the pan on his head. "It was just there."

: With Rob and his mother, Elsie.

: I don't remember if this was Burger King or Friendly's. He worked at both places in high school.

: We were camping at Moosehead Lake and this cabin was in the trail.

: At my 40th birthday party (which would have been his 18th birthday), with Rob's oldest friend, Gary Govelitz.

: Mike and me at the annual Millard Filmore Dinner in 1990

: She was 10 months old here.

: Mike at the McKeown's Poconos house.

: Mike teaches Katie McKeown about static electricity

: From left, Craig McKeown, me, Bruce McKeown,Rob, Cindy McKeown and Mike.

: Every picture I have of Mike on graduation day has his cap duct taped to a motorcycle helmet.

: Cahrlie Frey, our next-door neighbor in New York, was one of the best influences on Mike. He took him to his graduation on a lovingly restored Indian motorcycle.

: She loved her Uncle Mike from the start.

: Mike with me and his niece, Peyton when she was 5 months old. Behind us are Danny and Jennifer.

: Our neighborhood in Haverstraw, NY, loved a good water fight. I always grabbed the biggest water gun, but our neighbor, Charlie Frey, always used his garden hose and won.

: At the beginning of the culinary course at Rockland Community College. His drug and alcohol problems would force him to drop out a year later, but he worked at a chef in some really good restaurants.

: He donned some ribbon from the family Christmas party in the mid-1980s at his grandfather's house

: Mike shows off his talent at a friend's wedding.

: Mike and Janet with Rob and with Cindy McKeown, on a hike along the Hudson River.

: Mike with Ellen's dog, Dottie

: Mike with his cousin, Stephen, and Santa, at his Aunt Ellen's annual winter party, which was held in mid-January to avoid scheduling conflicts.

: Mike and Janet with Danny's three daughters.

: Mike and our dog, Beasley.

: Mike at about age 15 with our old friends, Jim Ronnan and Greg Weber.

: Mike on the day his grandfather died in January 1990. His Grandpa was his hero, and it was an awful loss for him.

: Mike in shades in Plymouth, Mass., on Easter 1990

: It was Easter 1990 and the five of us: Nancy Cacioppo, me (mom), Mike, Grammie Barbara and Shannon, went to Cape Cod and had a blast.

: We went on the Mayflower on our whale-watching trip in April 1990.

: Mike was on board the Mayflower on Easter weekend in April 1990. Five of us -- Mike, his cousin Shannon, Grammie Barbara, Mom and friend Nancy -- took a whale-watching trip off of Provincetown, Mass.

: Mike with Mom's buddy, Danielle, who was a very sound sleeper. After a birthday party, she dozed off and Mike surrounded her with empty wine and beer bottles, then persuaded Mom to take a picture.

: Mike with old family friend, Fran McKeown, playing poker.

: Mike with Mr. Molotov, the loud, cuddly cat.

: On a whitewater raft rtip in Pennsylvania with the gang from New Jersey.

: Ice can be slippery, as Mike learned in 1991 in the Poconos.

: This was taken at a friend's vacation house in the Pocono Mountains in 1991

: This was taken just after his Grandma Elsie died, in February 1997

: The first summer they were together.

: The first summer they were together.

: The tree took up half of their tiny living room and it kept keeling over because the stand was too small for it. That's Rob, his stepfather, under the tree.

: Mike loved other people's children.

: Mike at one of the Boyd family winter parties. He was holding his cousin Stephen's daughter, Michaela, and his cousin, Christina, was pouncing on him.

: Meghan was 4 here. She adored her Uncle Mike.

: He wasn't one to wear suits, but he did own one.

: Mike with his dad, his brother Hazen (Danny to the family) and Scott the night before his wedding.

: Mike and his Grammie Barbara always loved being silly together. She was never annoyed by his antics.

: Danny always wanted serious pictures of the two of them and he admonished Mike before this one was shot to be serious for just a moment.

: Mike loved to clown it up for the camera, but his brother hated when he did that, so he waited to be funny until I snapped a second picture.

: It was delicious and he was polite.

: Neither one of us knew how to dance, so we just showed off our ignorance at his wedding.

: On their wedding day. Sweet and sassy -- the perfect couple.

: Mike and Janet's brother playing in the hammock.

: Dogs know who loves them and Beasley always knew Mike was a sucker for a cute life form.

: The cap was his mom's and it was a running joke with a friend. Mike was never afraid to look silly.

: This was just a few weeks before MIke got sick, shooting photos of the mountains at Catalouchee in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

: Agin, I'm not sure where they were, but they seem to be having a good time

: Im not sure where they were, but this is Danny and Mike with their dad

: He was the one who took them places because he had the money to do it

: I think they were 6 and 8 that year.

: The boys loved to play pinball, but Danny usually won.

: MIke napping, He was very, very good at that.

: Mike bein silly. What else is new?

: Mike and Mom at Janet's graduation in June 2007, before thr cancer returned.

: Mike at Halloween

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Patient Pals & Family Friends volunteer training

Our Feb. 27 training had to be postponed, but we have rescheduled. Join us 8 days, as we train our next group of volunteers for Patient Pals & Family Friends. The four-hour training will run 10 a.m.-2 p.m. and will include lunch. Patient Pals are people who have experience with an illness or disability. After training, they will be paired with someone who is newly diagnosed or disabled. Family Friends will be volunteers who are paired with family members of people who are ill or disabled, and will have been through the expeience of having a loved one with illness or disability.

In Loving Memory

Life o' Mike has participated two memorial services to remember those who have died from our broken health care system, one in Asheville and one in Raleigh. If you would like to organize more of these services, please contact lifeomike@gmail.com and we will help put it together. The services include stories, prayers and information on how people of faith can make a difference. About 45,000 people die each year because they don’t have health insurance, according to a recent study by Harvard Medical School and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. That breaks down to one American every 12 minutes. Those people can be honored in the service by a bell chime and a moment of silence every 12 minutes in the service. For more information, call Leslie Boyd at 828-243-6712.