Michael Dingle in2009, on his wedding day.

I haven’t made all too many friends in my years, and very few of them I truly loved. I learned yesterday that Michael died in an accident. He was a friend and I loved him. He was a member of our tribe here at “…the house…” and showed up in at least three posts, most recently just a week ago, My Breakfast with Michael. I honor him with a post I wrote a few years ago.

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June 25, 2009

Michael, a close friend, considerably younger than me, pitched a shop-worn cliché recently, declaring, “There must be more to life.” He had arrived at that life transition, where with one foot planted in the autumnal flowering of youth, you find the other foot up and striding to that other place, the parking lot of mature respectability. The older we get, the more assuredly we conclude, ‘Yep, this is it, it’s all she wrote.’ I think Michael was expecting wisdom from me. But I came up short. I kicked the dirt and glanced around, nervously. The young feel the urge of expectancy, the call that a unique life of challenge and discovery awaits them. I remember it well. Later, when that call grows hoarse, then turns to a whisper, you wonder what happened. I didn’t know how to break it to him. He was entering a place in life where the wild genes struggle for attention, as the stable genes manufacture cravings for a sofa and a beer and a Sunday football game on T.V. The stable genes always out-maneuver the wild genes. That is maturity at work. Eventually he will understand.

Everyone does.

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Indeed, Michael did come to understand. Shortly after the exchange above, he got married, then, later, became a father. He embraced the “stable gene,” telling me at breakfast last week, “I love my wife, I love my daughter. I love my life.”