{"id":728,"date":"2014-09-03T00:00:49","date_gmt":"2014-09-03T00:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/mission-and-identity\/?p=728"},"modified":"2019-09-18T16:50:13","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T20:50:13","slug":"mike-evanss-j-when-death-comes-september-1-2014-r-i-p","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2014\/09\/03\/mike-evanss-j-when-death-comes-september-1-2014-r-i-p\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Evans,\tS.J. — “When Death Comes” September 1, 2014 r.i.p."},"content":{"rendered":"

Wednesday August 20 \u00a0– \u00a0Losing one of your own<\/b><\/p>\n

Mike Evans moved into Lansing Reilly to join our Jesuit community in mid-summer. \u00a0Mike is a native Detroiter and he and the Jesuit midwest leadership decided that UDM\u2019s campus, where he studied (BA – English & History; MA Philosophy), would be a good place for him to get substantial medical treatment for a major cyst. \u00a0 We Jesuits at Six Mile Road welcomed him and his vibrant presence among us \u2014 we told one another stories, many of his related to the decades he lived and worked in Africa with the Jesuit Refugee Service and as treasurer of The African Assistancy (Jesuit-language for a large region). \u00a0 He also served 4 years \u00a0as president of Loyola High School on 5 Mile Road, one of the two Jesuit high schools in Detroit.<\/p>\n

He had surgery on August 25 and in the week that followed he emerged from and was moved back into Intensive Care several times. \u00a0We were all waiting through this tedious recuperation process with him. \u00a0 Until this Labor Day Monday when an ICU intervention failed to control hemorrhaging. \u00a0He died about 8:00 pm. \u00a0He had just turned 60. \u00a0(N.b., You can find his wake, funeral and burial information at the end of this post).<\/p>\n

In mid-August I posted a new Mary Oliver poem, \u201cWhen Death Comes.\u201d \u00a0A number of the readers of the Work Day list wrote to tell me how the poem moved them. \u00a0 I\u2019m posting it again to honor Mike who, I like to think, lived as a warrior, mostly in and about Africa and about inner city Detroit. \u00a0Best to read the poem out loud.<\/p>\n

We miss Mike.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

john staudenmaier sj<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Post<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Death Comes”<\/b><\/p>\n

When death comes<\/p>\n

like the hungry bear in autumn;<\/p>\n

when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;<\/p>\n

when death comes<\/p>\n

like the measle-pox<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

when death comes<\/p>\n

like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:<\/p>\n

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And therefore I look upon everything<\/p>\n

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,<\/p>\n

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,<\/p>\n

and I consider eternity as another possibility,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and I think of each life as a flower, as common<\/p>\n

as a field daisy, and as singular,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,<\/p>\n

tending,\u00a0as all music does, toward silence,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and each body a lion of courage, and something<\/p>\n

precious to the earth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When it\u2019s over, I want to say:\u00a0 all my life<\/p>\n

I was a bride married to amazement.<\/p>\n

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When it\u2019s over, I don\u2019t want to wonder<\/p>\n

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to find myself sighing and frightened,<\/p>\n

or full of argument.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to end up simply having visited this world.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mary Oliver \u00a0\u00a0New and Selected Poems, Vol.1<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mike will be buried from Gesu Parish, just across McNichols Road.<\/p>\n

\"Mike-Evans\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Wake:<\/strong>
\nFriday, September 5, 2014
\n2:00 – 4:30 p.m.
\nPrayer Service at 3:00 p.m.
\nand
\n6:30 – 9:00 p.m.
\nPrayer Service at 7:00 p.m.
\nGesu Parish
\n17180 Oak Drive
\nDetroit, MI 48221<\/p>\n

Funeral Mass:<\/strong>
\nSaturday, September 6, 2014
\n10:00 a.m.
\nGesu Parish
\n17180 Oak Drive
\nDetroit, MI 48221<\/p>\n

Burial:<\/strong>
\nSaturday, September 6, 2014
\n3:00 p.m.
\nColombiere Center
\n9075 Big Lake Road
\nClarkston, MI 48346<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wednesday August 20 \u00a0– \u00a0Losing one of your own Mike Evans moved into Lansing Reilly to join our Jesuit community in mid-summer. \u00a0Mike is a native Detroiter and he and the Jesuit midwest leadership decided that UDM\u2019s campus, where he … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11641],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=728"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":734,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728\/revisions\/734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}