Michael has passed away...
I’ve just found out that Michael has died... I didn’t know him personally, but I know he was a blogger. I’d only recently started reading his blog. I saw a post on Mastodon that was published today on his profile. Intrigued, I expanded the post before I started reading it.
It came as a bolt from the blue... I found it hard to believe what I was reading. But it was true. Michael has passed away. He died on Wednesday…
I immediately went to his blog. Right at the top, I noticed a post that had been published today. With the telling title: ‘From the great beyond…’. It began to sink in that Michael was dead. My heart was filled with emptiness.
He’s gone. He’d been battling illness. He’d recently started radiation therapy. He’d written about it on his blog and on Mastodon. Sadly, the illness proved too strong.
How it's devastating. I don’t know what to write. I don’t know if I should write anything at all. After all, I’d only known him briefly. Only online. Only through the blogosphere and the Fediverse. I don’t think he even knew I existed. It was me who followed him on Mastodon and read his blog. I liked his ‘Weekly Roundup’ and his reflections on various topics best. Sometimes they were thought-provoking, like one of his recent posts titled ‘Emojis in Blog Post Titles Instead of Using Tags’.
But does it matter? Michael… It’s such a sad and devastating feeling to know that you’re passed away. I’m so sorry. Dear family and friends – please accept my condolences. Our blogosphere is poorer for the loss of this wonderful and kind-hearted man. But the world on the other side is richer for his smile and passion.
Goodbye, Michael... I'm so sorry that you will never write to us again.
Finally, I would like to quote the words of his daughter Katie, who posted info of his death on Michael’s blog:
If you want to do something in honor of Michael, please make a donation to St Jude, I believe he has it linked on his homepage.
That’s true. The link to that page is right at the bottom of his blog. And it leads here.
Please don’t leave reaction bottom on this post. I don’t want to gain traction off someone’s death. I just wanted to say goodbye to him, and how else could I do that when we were both bloggers? I wanted to do it here. On the blog. On the blog, which was also shaped by the inspiration drawn from the posts he published. If you’d like to and are able to, please make a donation to St Jude as his daughter wrote.