I don't really know what a "life story" is or how you reduce someone's existence, which was larger than life, into a few short paragraphs. So I just want to talk about that last summer of his life. It was the summer my girls and I were going to be moving to Hawaii, but first we were going to spend about two months with my dad since Mike was going to a class. And he wanted to try to find a place for us to live before we got there so we didn't have to spend any time in a hotel with three children and two dogs. I had suggested in the spring before our arrival how "nice" it would be if my dad put his large backyard to use and put in a nice swimming pool. He must have liked the idea too because before I knew it, he sent pictures of it. Instead of going away on a family vacation, we all decided to use my dad's house as our meeting place that summer. It had been almost 2 years since we had all been together. Amanda was coming in from Colorado, Adam, Allie, Ryan, my mom and grandma were coming down from PA. It was the perfect arrangement. We laughed a lot. We drank a few beers here and there. We celebrated 4th of July and Allie and Ryan's birthdays. Maybe it was in my imagination and maybe I didn't notice it then, but something was off. My dad spent a lot of time in the background of our time together just watching. Or behind his beloved camera. Did he know that it was all about to be over? Did he somehow see that maybe he needed to soak up all he could with us all in the same place...because he was getting ready to leave us? I have a lot of questions when I see him again.