Hi everybody! Daisy Jones-Klein here. Usually I like to use
this space to tell y’all about all the fun stuff I’ve been doing since me and
my Peeps left Virginia for our new Forever
Home here in Santa Fe.
But not today. Last week, Peeps and dogs alike lost a true friend. Today’s blog
is dedicated to Mike Hirsch.
There’s the family you’re born into. But there’s also the
family you choose. Every Rescue Dog knows this as Truth.
Dad and Mike first met when Dad was just a pup in the mid-1970s,
right after he moved to the Washington
DC area. They became friends, and
about a year later Mike moved to New York and Massachusetts. By the
time Mike moved back to the Washington
area in the early 1980s, both he and Dad were married and had started families.
Over the years, the two families stayed close, helping their kids grow up, taking
vacations together, and in general just being there for each other through the
ups and downs of life.
Mike had a stroke last week. He never regained
consciousness. He died three days later.
There’s a lot we could tell you about Mike. We could tell
you about his degrees from MIT, his careers in energy and environment and
telecommunications, his travels around the world, or all the famous folks he’d
worked with. But those are just details, and never seemed to sound like how
Mike would describe himself.
Mike was a schmoozer, and a really good one at that. He was at his happiest when talking with people. Whether it was following his kids’ sports, or his passion for chess and bridge, or his collection of rare maps, or hanging with the other Peeps at the dog park while Harley romped and got his ya-yas out, or just chattering away on a host of nerdy technical topics, it didn’t much matter. For Mike, these were all just ways of connecting with family and friends, which for him is what really mattered.
Mike was a schmoozer, and a really good one at that. He was at his happiest when talking with people. Whether it was following his kids’ sports, or his passion for chess and bridge, or his collection of rare maps, or hanging with the other Peeps at the dog park while Harley romped and got his ya-yas out, or just chattering away on a host of nerdy technical topics, it didn’t much matter. For Mike, these were all just ways of connecting with family and friends, which for him is what really mattered.
“Mensch” is a Yiddish
word, roughly translated as “human being.” But its meaning goes deeper, and a
mensch can more broadly can be thought of as a person of integrity,
character, responsibility, and honor. A mensch is someone to admire and emulate.
It’s a high compliment for a Peep, earned over a lifetime.
Mike was a mensch.
But there was more to him than that. Gentle Readers, if
you’re a fellow quadruped, you’d already know this. And if you’re a Peep with a
pet, you might have guessed it. You see, in many of the ways that really count,
Mike was almost dog-like. Consider the evidence:
- He knew the value of building and maintaining a good Forever Home for himself and his family. Harley, and before him Midnight and Dawn, chose their family well.
- He’d always be happy just to see you. If he had a tail, it’d be a-wagging. There was no agenda. Slights and grudges were things to be forgotten.
- He was loyal. In dog-years, his friendships were often measured in centuries.
- He lived fully in the present, waking up in the morning open to the possibilities of each dawning day.
Surely, for being able to rise above the Peeps-limitations
of a mensch, and attaining the higher standards us dogs aspire to, there should
be some appropriate way to honor Mike. So I asked around, polling my fellow Quadruped-Americans.
(Just the dogs; donkeys and goats and pesky cats weren’t needed this time.) I
checked with Blue, Bailey, Ginger, and Kayla in McLean VA; Goldie in Atlanta GA;
Zoe and Emma in Santa Fe; Indy in Colonial Beach VA; Maitre and Prince in
Bethesda MD; Madison in Deer Canyon Preserve NM; Rufus, Toby, Sadie, Bella, and
Maggie right here in my neighborhood; Boo Radley and Henry and Scout Finch in
Laguna Beach CA; Sadie and Zoe in Leesburg VA; and Lucy in Mariaville ME.
By unanimous consent, we’re pleased to bestow upon Mike Hirsch the
Order of the Canine, signifying some of the finest qualities of both man and
beast. From us finer critters, there can be no higher compliment.
As you’ve often heard me say, it’s good to be Daisy. But I
think it was good to be Mike, too.
So rest in peace, Mike Hirsch. We’re gonna miss you.
Daisy Jones-Klein and her Peeps
Santa Fe,
NM
June 2013
