Michael
It took his death to tell the story of his life.
Four months ago, Michael was singing in his band at Murphy's Loft in Blakeslee. This past week, I attended his funeral with my wife who is a good friend of Marianne, his bride of 33 years.Michael's obituary defined his accomplished life. He was born in Germany. He earned an undergraduate degree at Springfield College and a master's in experimental psychology at Syracuse University. He worked 27 years for Citigroup, mostly as Director for Crisis Management on a global level and played a significant role in the bank's financial recovery after 9/11. He was a longtime resident of Jim Thorpe.At the funeral service, I met his brother Blane, who shared the rest of Michael's incredible story with me. Michael was born in 1952 to an American soldier and a young German woman. Since she was under the legal age, and they were very poor, his mother and father were unable to marry and they made the painful decision to put 5-month-old Michael up for adoption. In high school, he began the difficult task of trying to find his birth mother and father. With the support of his adoptive parents, he found his mother's last known address, but his letters were returned with "no one of this name" stamped on the envelopes. Finally, in 2014, he made a connection with a German woman who located his parents. This led Michael to discover he also had three brothers and a sister he had never known."So one night three years ago the phone rings," Blane said. "I pick it up and I hear, 'Hello, this is your brother, Michael.' " I was 57 years old and never knew I had a brother, and Michael was 61 when he found out he had three brothers and a sister."Of course we planned to get together," Blane said. I live in Oklahoma so I told Michael to meet me on the turnpike. I see his car pull over and the first thing he yells out the window to me is, 'Hey, bro!' "Michael met his new brothers and sister and then had an obviously emotional reunion with his mother and father. "They tried to apologize to me for having to give me up, but I wouldn't let them.""I had a charmed life," he said in a Times News story from three years ago. "I had great parents and a happy childhood. I wanted to find my natural parents and tell them I'm OK."My entire relationship with Michael was a quick greeting and a handshake when I met him that August afternoon at Murphy's. But after hearing him sing and play the guitar, I got to know him so well through his soul. It's funny how music bonds a singer and a listener who are total strangers to each other. Michael had a gifted voice that could grab you by the heart with lyrics from old songs that took you back in time to moments when you found your first love or lost it or when you grudgingly relinquished your precious innocence into the hands of a corrupt society.I didn't just hear Michael sing these words, I felt their power inside me so much that I zoned everything out to let his music pull me into his emotions.French poet and novelist Victor Hugo wrote "Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent."For Michael, these words explain why he loved to sing, especially his signature rendition of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." When his band performed the song at Murphy's, there was not a dry eye at the bar. I wonder if Michael already knew that the final verse of this beautiful melody might become the epitaph that encapsulates his successful journey to find his family before his death."I did my best. It wasn't much. I couldn't feel so I had to touch. I've told the truth. I didn't come to fool you. And even though it all went wrong, I'll stand before the Lord of Song with nothing on my tongue, but hallelujah."Whenever I hear this song, I will think of Michael and remember his heavenly voice. This Christmas, I will look up in the sky, and if I listen carefully to the music of the wind, I just might hear him singing to the angels.Hallelujah!Rich Strack can be reached at