Legacies
Friday, February 28th at 6:45pm, Michelle Whitehead Hastings passed away. She left this world peacefully, quietly, and with the loving arms of her family around her. Before she passed she expressed many wishes for things she would like to leave behind in her wake. Some of them she was able to accomplish, while many more were left unfilled, at least for now. One of her wishes was to put together a final blog post for all of the people that have been with her throughout the past seven years. Words she wanted to leave behind for all of us. Unfortunately, Michelle was not able to write the final chapter quite as she had hoped.
Over the last several months, I have pored over her previous blog posts, her Facebook posts, and most importantly I was able to speak to Michelle directly about what she had wanted for her final post. So if you will allow me, I would like to create that final post in Michelle’s memory.
It would be easy to make this post about cancer, or the battles that people fight against it. It would be easy to pull up some data and tell everyone how early testing has been proven to be a solid preventative to colon cancer. It would be easy to tell you all about how the Cancer Treatment Center of America may well have given us the last three years with Michelle that we would not have had without their assistance. But I’m not going to talk you about any of that. Michelle has done that for us all already. Today, I only want to talk to you about her legacies. I want to talk to you about what Michelle left for the world and how she did the best she could in 38 years to fill it with love, laughter, and brilliant smiles.
Og Mandino said “I am convinced that the greatest legacy we can leave our children are happy memories: those precious moments, so much like pebbles on the beach that are plucked from the white sand and placed in tiny boxes that lay undisturbed on tall shelves, until one day they spill out and time repeats itself, with joy and sweet sadness, in the child now an adult.”
I do not know if Michelle ever read these words, but even if she didn’t she certainly lived them. Michelle managed to touch so many lives over the years, but in her life the most important ones she touched were those of her children, Julia and Kevin.
Michelle leaves as her most important legacies two children who, in their strength, their beauty, their intelligence, and in their zeal for life, embody the work and greatest desires of their mother. Julia is a gorgeous twelve year old girl who loves music and art, whose singing voice was always able to bring a smile to her mother’s face and a tear to her eye. She loves writing and rewriting songs, taking melodies she loves and making them her own. She also loves to draw and bring to life with pencil and pen her thoughts and ideas. She is such a fiercely intelligent girl, bringing logic to life and easily turning the smallest of ideas into a hilarious joke.
Kevin is an amazingly intelligent eight year old boy who loves math, sports and fast cars. You can’t help but crack a grin while he is putting his Papa in time-out, or telling Nana how he just doesn’t think it will work to have her to come over and jump on the couch with him. He loves his family so deeply and is a testament to the love that he has been shown from both his mother and father.
One of the things Michelle was adamant about over the last few months, knowing that time was growing short, was that she was not going to allow this to become about her “losing her battle” with colon cancer. Many would see this as a fight for her, a fight against a disease that took her from us far too soon. But Michelle never allowed her diagnosis to define her. Instead she chose to live despite that diagnosis. She chose to live every single day to its fullest. To cherish the moments it brought her, both good and bad, and to make the best of every single one of them.
Several months ago she created a hashtag that many of you have seen; #LivelikeMichelle. While this may have been a revelation to many of us, to those of us that knew Michelle for any length of time we already knew that this was merely an expression on social media of something that Michelle had been doing for decades. For some people, this message may be the most important legacy to carry on in memory of Michelle. To live every day, every hour, every minute to its fullest. To remember to let go of the things that truly do not matter, and to embrace the things that do. To love like no other and to live in every single moment, rather than to let them pass us by.
In addition to talking about Michelle’s legacies, I would be remiss if I didn’t also talk about the three people that have remained closest to Michelle throughout her life, and who meant so much to her particularly in the last few years. I mean of course her loving husband Levi, and her dedicated parents, Jim and Lee Whitehead.
Lee and Michelle Hastings were married on December 29, 2001, and their love has seen them through all the years since they walked down that aisle together. In speaking to Michelle just a few weeks ago, she truly struggled to find the right words for just what Levi has meant to her. Although he may never read this, I want it to be known by everyone that does that he lived up to every vow he pledged to Michelle 14 years ago, that he is a valued member of our family, and that he has our love.
Mom and Dad’s role in Michelle’s life can’t be understated either. Michelle and I talked at length about how she appreciated everything that Mom and Dad did for her throughout her life, from taking care and raising her through her childhood, to helping her immensely, especially in the last few years while she struggled with her disease and everything that came with it. Michelle was and always will be loved and treasured by our Mom and Dad.
In closing, I want to take a moment and thank every one of you. While I could try to reach out to everyone she touched over the years, Michelle’s magnetic personality has brought so many people to her side that to do so may be a book by itself. Your thoughts, your kind words, your songs and simple statements of love and support have meant the world to Michelle and to our entire family throughout the years. Michelle wanted, at the beginning of this blog, to simply have an outlet, a place for people to get updates on her situation and her life. In the last seven years it has managed to become so much more than that. It became a beacon, a place for people to come together. It became a place where people could not only follow her story but to learn from it. Michelle’s blog brought many people together, and it gave her hope and steadied her resolve. It showed her that the choices she was making, to live the way she chose to despite her diagnosis, were the right ones.
In the future, we will be working to bring together the collective work of her blog, as well as her other efforts on and off of social media in a book that we will work to publish and reach a broader scope than it has until now. From our friends and family, we ask that you take some time over the next several months and bring together some testimonials of your own to contribute to that effort. Please take some time and send a message to livelikemichelle@gmail.com that includes a brief story of how Michelle and her story touched you. How she, through her work and her life, were able to affect you. Keep in mind that not all stories will be able to be included in the book, but that we will make an effort to read each and every one and to keep everyone up to date on its progress.
While Michelle’s body may have passed beyond the fold, it was vitally important to her that she knows that her spark, her spirit, and her fire live on. It can and will live on in our families, and I encourage each and every one of you to carry her memory, and let her live on in yourselves as well.
From the Hastings and the Whitehead families, we thank you all.
Bob Whitehead
