Michael Hayden Bonoff

There were more or less my remarks at Michael's memorial, posted by request of Libby: THANK you Bobbie, Leonard, Ron, salmon cooks and beautiful drum circle. Michael had deep respect and love for the Suquamish tribal community that he worked in for so long and I think the fact that we have all been welcomed here today at the House of Awakened Culture to celebrate his life speaks more strongly about Michael than anything else we might say. So thank you. I’ve know Michael since the late 1970s so it really surprised me that I couldn’t find one big story that would be Quintessentially Michael. Instead, what I came up with were a series of images – an imaginary slide show – that speak to me of something I think we all treasured about Michael. In the first image, Michael is sitting in Shig Moritani’s kitchen. It’s a 50’s style house, linoleum floor, furniture that has seen better days. Michael is politely drinking coffee that he doesn’t like and listening intently to Shig’s stories about his work in the shipyard, his brothers, his family’s history on the property (which is now the Moritani Preserve). Michael asks questions but mostly he listens. Michael was AT HEART A LISTENER. HE WAS INTERESTED IN EVERYTHING AND HE WANTED TO HEAR WHAT YOU THOUGHT ABOUT IT! Peter’s friend Skyler says that Michael was the most INTERESTED person he ever knew. I think that’s true. And he LISTENED AND WAS INTERESTED ACROSS AGES, ACROSS GENERATIONS, AND ACROSS CULTURES. Another image of Michael listening and interested is in Nicaragua. Michael is sitting in the front of the van that has just picked up a student delegation from Bainbridge. Freddy the Nicaraguan driver will take the group to Ometepe. According to Betsy Carroll, she and the students and the other chaperones filled in the back of van and were talking to each other in English. But Michael goes straight to the passenger seat so he could engage with Freddy. Now Michael’s Spanish was heavily accented and was – let’s just say… fairly rudimentary. So we can imagine poor Freddy negotiating the Managua traffic and trying to carry on a conversation and decipher what Michael is earnestly asking. But it was so important to Michael to ENGAGE with his Ometepe friends in their own language. IT WAS A MATTER OF RESPECT. And I know that Freddy and the other Ometepinos who adored Michael understood that respect loud and clear even if the verb conjugations weren’t quite right. We all know that Michael was passionate about the natural world. A mental photo I have illustrating this – and my husband don’s favorite --is Michael at helm of our sailboat off the coast of northern Vancouver Island. He has insisted we put up all the sails even though there’s not a breath of wind. We’re going about 2 knots but Michael has the hugest grin on his face. He’s in heaven out on the Salish Sea and it doesn’t matter a bit that we’re barely moving. He is SO WILLING TO SLOW DOWN TO TAKE IN THE BEAUTY AND TO PAY ATTENTION TO EVERY DETAIL. I have known no one who paid closer, awestruck attention to the natural world than Michael. Michael was really good at slowing down but he could go at it hard when needed. Here’s an image of Michael on the soccer field, playing center halfback – the play maker, the connector – with his foot about to connect with the ball to pass it. It’s possible that seconds after this photo, Michael is on the ground. Richie Storch, good friend and teammate, says that on the Red Zinger soccer team, they kept track of who got the most scabs during a season – it was a badge of honor –and Michael almost always accrued the most. Richie says “ He was always willing to TAKE ONE FOR THE TEAM, literally and figuratively.” MICHAEL WAS SOMEONE YOU WANTED ON YOUR TEAM. WHETHER IT WAS SOCCER OR HIS TEAM AT WORK OR THE FAMILY HE MARRIED INTO, YOU COULD COUNT ON MICHAEL TO DO WHAT WAS NEEDED, RELIABLY, THOUGHTFULLY AND WITH HUMILITY. Finally, my lasting image of Michael is on the last night of his life, on winter solstice. This is Michael’s favorite event of the year when he builds a huge bonfire and invites family and friends. This year there are 40 or 50 people including some new neighbors Michael had just met. He welcomed them with open arms and put them to work. HE HAD SUCH A HUGE HEART. So in this image, Michael has already talked with everyone , the night is slowing down, the fire is burning out and now he is standing up the hill a bit, slightly apart and HIS EYES ARE FOLLOWING VERA AND WADE AS THEY RUN AROUND THE DARK YARD, IN AND OUT OF THE BONFIRE LIGHT. HE CAN’T TAKE HIS EYES OFF HIS GRANDCHILDREN. SO MUCH LOVE! MICHAEL LEFT US WITH SO MUCH LOVE. I THINK WE CAN BEST HONOR MICHAEL BY FOLLOWING HIS LEAD -- LISTENING WITH INTEREST AND RESPECT, SLOWING DOWN TO PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT’S IMPORTANT, AND CONNECTING WITH LOVED COMMUNITY AS WELL AS NEW NEIGHBORS.