My good friend, Michael Hendricks, died last night from a massive heart attack. He was 40 years old. I met Michael on BART a few years ago, by accident. A couple of years later, he turned up as Wiley’s partner, and got involved with the AIDS/LifeCycle and Team Bear/Team Be-Cause, and was the treasurer of Prideworks. We worked together doing charitable events and fund raising, and had such wonderful fun working together.
Michael always made me laugh. He had the whole Southern Belle persona down to a tee.
Oh, Michael, I love you and will miss you. My heart goes out to Wiley and all his friends and family.
I wrote this to a friend who asked me about him:
Well, he was 40, Michael was. Originally from Lodi, grew up in Fremont and Brentwood. Had a sweet partner, Wiley. We knew each other because we were involved with the AIDS/LifeCycle on the same fund raising team, Team Be-Cause. Over the course of the past couple of years, we became close friends.
Michael was one of the kindest, funniest, most caring and hard working men I’ve known. No matter what was going on in my life, I always felt really good when I was in his presence. He made bad situations good and good situations great. He was a total southern belle in the steel magnolias mold. LOL
But, he also smoked a pack of cigs a day and was a traveling salesman who had a fast food diet when he was on the road, which was quite a bit. We used to joke that about those bad habits, but I knew that he was actually scared about them. He started going to weight watchers a couple of months ago and was losing weight and trying to get healthy, but the damage had been done.
I loved him and miss him a lot right now. I gave the eulogy tonight at the vigil, and I think that helped people feel better, or at least be able to share their grief.
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