And life goes on,....

Ok I've accepted Mikie is gone, now let's clean it up! (The following can be somewhat graphic, but frankly at my age, it's mere reality, and I HAVE to accept it!)
As I told you yesterday, I think, the forensic investigator told us the entire bedroom in which Mikie was found needed to be "mitigated" by a crime scene clean-up team. He was kind enough top give me a few names and numbers.
REALITY FACT #1 - It ain't like the movies folks! Regardless of what you see on TV, when you die your muscles ALL relax. "Bodily fluids" abound! Enough said.
The fact that Mikie had been dead for two days compounded the problem. The "mitigation" people came out this morning (we were warned to simply close off the room he was in when he died, turn the Air Conditioning down to 60 degrees, and wait for the mitigation people.) At $170 dollars an hour, and four hours later, the "scene" was declared "inhabitable". Both Vince , his "roomy" and I have no desire to even enter the room until at least Sunday. The "mitigation specialist" threw out half his computer system, (keyboard, printer, connecting cables, etc.) the table and chairs it sat on, and ripped out the carpet in the room and threw it as well.
REALITY FACT # 2 - Legality is pure SHIT! I called the ME (Medicaol Examiner's) Office and asked if they could tell me anything, like what would happen top Mikie's body, was the autopsy complete, what was the cause of death, all the usual. The answers, "Yes the autopsy is complete (my stomach is queasy), but NO we can not tell you what the cause of death was unless you are next of kin. "Shit lady, he was my buddy for eight years we had beers at least three times a week, we worked together on jobs and helped each other, I hired him and gave him work for three years, if that's not "kin" what is?"
"I'm sorry sir, only a blood relative is "kin" as you say it."
REALITY FACT #3 - Friends are friends,....forever, and then some! Vince, his "roomy" fouind an uncashed check for work he had done for a friend, I found a check he hadn't picked up yet at my company, and we "conspired". The big check Vince found was from a buddy who Mikie worked for. We called him and we burned that check at the Pub this afternoon. He in turn wrote a check for the "Bio-hazard Mitigation", in full, and threww a few hundred more into "the fund".
I'll probably forge Mikie's name and cash the check from my form and it too will go into "the fund".
The "inner circle", Mikie's real friends met agian this afternoon, and we've committed to do what ever we have to to gain legal control of Mikie's remains, we've rounded up more than $1,300 to have him cremated, and we will organize, orchestrate, and have a full service for Mikie.
The plans are now to set a date, tell all his friends far and wide to come, go down to the Gulf of Mexico on the white sands Mikie loved and hung out on, say absolutely nothing, but think of the Mikie we each knew and loved so much, and then set his ashes free in the breeze to swim in the emerald waters, lounge on the sands and watch the "eye candy" (gorgeous young women in bikini's), or just become "one with the air that supports us" , it's Mikie's call.
I'm going to the Florida State/Boston College football game tomorrow, and I'm taking my wife instead of Mikie. Why? Because I can't think of anyone I love more than Mikie, than Barbara. To go anywhere with someone you love is always more better than anything else.
She misses Mikie as well. We used to invite him over for Christmas, Thanksgiving, and any other time we could. He loved her cooking, flattered her to a fare thee well everytime he was here, and never left empty-handed. I will set aplace for him this season, what else are friends for?
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