I want to tell you that the time I've spent here, last Summer and Fall, was some of the best days I had ever in my life, and for that, I thank Mike: not only we started working on exciting projects when I arrived in June, also we'd play music with the "Funky Lapinos" at night... I was amazed at how life was simple for Mike and how energic and positive he was all the time (and fun when he'd grab the microphone to sing in place of Pilar in a falsetto mood).

Open, lovable and bright-shining, it's the Mike I know.

My favorite time was when we were driving to the other side of Portland to Pilar's place, we would have time to chat. I rarely had this feeling of being in front of an "open book". We were talking about music of course, about getting older, running our lives, our birthdays coming in october! We belong to the same generation, he had an experience in France, I had this experience in Oregon, it was curious. Then I'll remember this saturday morning all my life: he phoned to cancel the walk in the woods, he was coughing, wanted to rest and visit Kaiser on monday, the rest is know.

Louise, my 4 year old daughter, is fond of Mike. Now and then in January, February and March she would understand from our grim faces that something was going wrong and she would ask "I'm really looking forward when Mike leaves the hospital, I like it when you make music, it's fun. And I like to go to his place too" (Mike would always carefully and gently introduce Sammy to the youngest ones, so that they are not scared). This reminds me also about the mail Mike sent to everybody in OGI to annouce his disease (12th October), even though he was striked badly, he had this sweet footnote for people in the department "This is nothing contagious - even if I have coughed right in your face.." (still makes me smile today: he's diagnosed with a lethal cancer and he takes the time to reassure people who might be ignorant of cancer's facts and panic for themselves).

You can be proud of him, he made a difference around him, whoever the people I talk to (well also as a brilliant researcher in the blah-blah community, but this whole research job sounds like a fun game rather than a quest to have his name carved in history).

Since then, life withered somehow, the stories I read to my daughters at night have lost some innocence, my guitar rest in her case and my job starts looking like a job. I lacked the courage to come in the hospital, I'm not sure what for anyway, maybe to speak to him in his sleep. Well, I talk to him in my sleep and I tell him I'm glad I had the chance to meet him. In "bitter end" there's the word bitterness, although he had several occasions, Mike did not show a trace of it.

Love,
Vincent PAGEL
Center for Speech and Language Understanding
Phone: (503) 748 3005  Cascade Building