Today in History: Michael Makoe Died
On this day (March 15) in 2009, my father-in-law, Michael Makoe, died. It was the sad and painful end to an even sadder and more painful decade of his suffering. It was the conclusion of an important phase in my family’s life and the beginning of a hard period in which we struggled to discover the shape of our future without the man who had been so central to our lives for so many years.
Michael Makoe was an exceedingly good man. He’d offered years of service to his family and his country, worked to provide for his wife and daughters, volunteered his time as a soccer coach and generally helped out his neighbors whenever they had need. He was strikingly intelligent, well informed and articulate. He obtained a patent for a garage door opening device which he invented. He always had a joke or a story to share and he made friends very easily.
He was sick with cancer most of the years I knew him. He had been exposed to agent orange while serving in Vietnam and compounded the damage those chemicals had done with a lifetime of smoking cigarettes. The cancer changed him, limiting him physically even as it offered him the opportunity to demonstrate his incredible will power and his strong desire to live. He endured chemotherapy and experimental drugs and defied doctors’ predictions of a quick end, fighting on for nearly a decade. He wanted desperately to return to work and his old life and was frustrated and depressed that this was not possible, but he found new ways to enjoy life mostly through his two grandchildren.
Michael’s illness forced his wife and daughters to find depths of strength I’m certain they didn’t know they had. Their care for him was admirable, inspiring, and touching at every level. They gave him love, comfort and dignity and kept him by them in our home so there would be no chance that he would die alone.
Ten years later Michael is still interwoven in our lives. His name continues to frequently filter through our conversations, proving that he’s not far from anyone’s thoughts. The majority of those memories are happy ones drawn from the years long before the cancer intruded into our lives and it goods to hear the laughter they bring. This is the Michael Makoe I would have liked to know better and through the memories of his wife and daughters, his grandchildren and I have enjoyed becoming better acquainted with him.
