Michael Sky died five days ago.
If I write about his death, it will mean he’s really gone. I don’t want to face it. I couldn’t have published BullWings: Orcas Issues these last two years without him. We were co-workers and I like to think we became friends.
He really believed in community journalism, and occasionally, after he’d undertaken big projects, like the “Great Expectations” featured pages in fall 2009, or the Community Journalism application and tutorial in summer 2010, we’d talk about what we evisioned for our local news site.
He always welcomed the community “voice.” He believed in and celebrated the power of communication and dialogue.
Along the way, he was the one responsible for fixing minor tweaks and major glitches, like the shutdown from our host provider in March 2010. Michael worked non-stop for days to move the site to his personal domain until we found a reliable new “home” for BullWings: Orcas Issues.
Although he lived in Opal Commons, just up the street from me, we didn’t see each other that much. He worked in his small, self-contained office, choosing simplicity, self-reliance and expression. He just did the work.
Michael was passionate about his profession, working for justice in order to find peace. He loved to write, to think about what he’d written and to make his writing better.
The first time I visited the home he shared with his wife Penny and his daughter Lily was a few months ago; we talked about his relinquishing Orcas Issues so that he could devote the remainder of his life to his personal writing. He’d just published Jubilee Day and was eager to explain both his writing life and the message of the forgiveness of all debts, contained in this novel. What a pleasure it was to listen to him and converse with him!
He said that his passion was moving forward, that he’d been inspired by the video “What If?” I asked if I could visit him again, just to talk and he said, “Of course.”
That never happened. Last Monday I said goodbye to Michael Sky.
In business, we like to say that no one is indispensable, but Michael was indispensable to BullWings. In the quiet, behind-the-scenes way that Michael operated, he was the backbone of our experiment in community journalism. Now he has moved on and so we must also move on.
How can I ever thank him adequately?
I promise you Michael Sky, that I will think peace, walk on fire, hope for a Jubilee Day and work for Community Journalism.
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What a beautiful tribute, I wish I had known him.
For each of us to “think peace, walk on fire, and hope for a Jubilee Day” is our gift from Michael Sky, and ours to him.
Your tribute to Michael warmed my heart. It proves that Orcas Issues is a doorway for love to flow out into the world. Thank you.
Think peace, walk on fire – what a great phrase to focus on when we are trying to keep going through enormous challenge. I am thankful to have known Michael’s story. This reaches me at a particularly challenging time in my own life.How fitting that Michael still reaches us and helps us even now.
Margie: You have a great heart, a great mind & a great soul, which shows, like Michael, in your writing ability.
Thank you for giving us a way to know Michael in a way we couldn’t have known without you.
What a beautiful tribute to Michael, Margie. Thank you.
Thank you Margie for sharing your thoughts and feelings about Michael. I, too, had a wonderful experience working with Michael as he handled all the fine details making the Chamber of Commerce website grow. But my real pleasure was in sitting with him in his little office, ostensibly to talk about the website stuff, but quickly moving on to other – more important – issues. I miss him.
Margie- I am so appreciative of your beautiful,elegant and pithy portrait of our friend Michael. The highest praise I can offer is that I think Michael will be very pleased with what you’ve written, and the place in your heart from which you’ve written it. Thank you!
Margie, Your tribute to Michael is lovely. We are east coast friends of the Sky-Sharp family. It is a comfort to us to hear stories from Michael’s Orcas friends who knew whim, loved him and miss him. Thank you.