My Friend Michael T.

It has been a difficult year for the friends and neighbors on Lakeside Dr. In July of last year we had to deal with the passing of Thomas Angarola, father to my friend Jonathan and his brothers Jeremy, Jacob and James Angarola.Less than thirteen months later, we are again drowning in tragedy. Michael John Terlicher, mine and Jonathan's childhood best friend died due to complications with his medication on Tuesday, August 16th.

Mike had recently moved back home, next door to my family, only a few weeks before I moved to Chicago. He had just gotten out of a long relationship, and had spent years dealing with bouts of depression. In the weeks we lived next door to each other again, we caught up plenty and enjoyed being able to have casual conversations without so much distance between us. Mike attended my last big party, and like the other guests thumbed through old photos I was giving away, played bocce and simply enjoyed himself. At some point in the evening he disappeared. This wasn't uncommon behavior for Mike, being so close all our lives he would frequently go home to grab a slice of pizza, a Pepsi, or relieve himself. He usually came back, but this night he did not. There was not much thought given to his leaving without saying good-bye, and I was sure I would see him again when I visited my parents in a few weeks.

I moved next-door to Michael when I was 3 years old, shortly after he had celebrated his fourth birthday. The first time I remember meeting Mike was in the fall. It was in the afternoon, and the sun was glowing orange in the sky the way it does shortly before it goes to bed this time of year. I was hanging from the only tree branch I was able to reach, on a tree near his property. Mike came outside and we climbed together, trying to reach the elusive second branch. When his mother Karen called his name the way she would for the next dozen years, he said he had to go eat dinner. He told me his phone number: 837-8418, and asked me mine. I told him to wait there as I ran into the house to the kitchen and asked my mom what our phone number was- I learned Mike's phone number before I even knew my own- I stood on the balcony as the sun was setting and yelled down the digits as my mother recited them to me 8...3...7 (just like Mike!) 5...9...7....7.

What followed was an entire childhood of impossibly close friendship. Mike was in fact my only friend until Mike's fifth birthday party. It was in the Terlicher backyard, with a clown and everything. One of the blond boys across the street, and brother to another close childhood friend Jacob, was there. I don't know how it happened, but Jonathan and I ended up getting into a fight in the backyard that day in early June. Afterword, the three of us decided to become best friends. Naturally.

The years of our childhood and adolescence were filled with sharing almost every new experience together. Catching fish, building forts, going on vacations with eachother's families, chasing girls, enjoying nudity on HBO, smoking our first cigarette, starting our first fire and drinking our first beer. Following all of that it should be of no surprise that we eventually got arrested together. We of course got into fights along the way. As young boys will do, we were always competitive, and often petty. There was nothing the three of us didn't share, though of course that would eventually change, as we went to different colleges, and made different friends. 

I was in a job interview downtown when Michael was struggling for his last breath. When I got the call from first Jonathan, and then my mom, I was dumbfounded. I finished walking the last block home to my fiance, and opened the door in tears. I felt everything and nothing all at the same time. Every conversation and memory that we had together overwhelmed my soul.

I never got to say goodbye to him- not from the party, or this world. His passing is now a milestone reminder that now, at 25 my childhood is over.

To the family of Micheal John Terlicher, my thoughts and prayers are with you all forever.
To my friends and family, I love you all so much, and need to tell you that more and more.

"Sammy, next year I'm going to leave you and go to middleschool. And two years later I'll leave you again, and then four years later I'll leave you again. I'll always be one year ahead of you, and always have to leave you."

-Micheal Terlicher