Lift Heavy
Today is my brother Mike’s birthday. He would have been 46.
Mike was a police officer in the town we grew up in, the same town where our dad retired from law enforcement, the same town where our grandpa served. Three generations. He was on the Downriver SWAT team. He had just been hired by the FBI. He was a father to twin girls, Laynie and Rylie. He was the kind of person who would yell “Shark Attack!” and pull off his sock to show the neighbor kids why he only had nine toes. His nickname was Niner.
He was my biggest antagonist and my biggest cheerleader.
Mike was diagnosed with clear cell sarcoma, one of the rarest cancers on the planet, in 2009. He fought it for years. The cancer came back in July of 2015 and invaded the space around his lungs. He died on Valentine’s Day 2016, a few weeks before this birthday. He was 35.
He Was Part of This
When Rob and I opened Fort Myers Brewing in March of 2013, Mike flew in to help. None of us had ever worked behind a bar. We had no training on the point of sale system. We just opened the doors and figured it out together.
A month later, he was posting on Facebook about our beer being on tap at World of Beers. “Proud of my sister and her husband….their beer is on tap….AWESOME!” He was in the brewhouse posting about Citra hops smelling great in the morning. He was closing the place down on our first anniversary. He worked Summerfest in 2015, serving beers to thousands of people with our dad. He loved it. He loved FMBrew.
He wanted so much to have a bigger role with the brewery. There is an FBI office just a few blocks from FMBrew, halfway between the brewery and our house. Mike dreamed of one day being assigned there. I pass it multiple times a day. I still tear up every time.
As Mike learned his cancer was back, he posted from Michigan: “Wishing I was serving beer in FL, without a care in the world.”
What Nobody Tells You About Grief and Business
From July 2015 until Mike passed, I was traveling constantly. MD Anderson in Texas. Dana Farber in Boston. Back and forth to Michigan for treatments, to spend time with him and his family. Mike asked me to come to his appointments. He called me “Notes” because I would keep copious notes from his doctors, trying to stay present while he and his wife were spiraling.
Rob stayed in Florida to run the business. That was one of the hardest parts. Not having my husband with me during the worst moments of my life because someone had to keep things running. We were also in the middle of expanding our taproom. The construction took far longer than it should have. We were distracted. That is an understatement.
Here is the thing about owning a business when your world falls apart: it does not stop. Customers have no idea what is going on behind the scenes. They expect the beer to flow, the events to continue, the social media to get answered. And they should. People come to places like FMBrew to have a moment of fun, to relax. They should not have to carry my grief.
I did not sleep for months. I would wake up in the middle of the night sobbing and Rob would just hold me. My anxiety was through the roof. It was a true lesson in bad things happening to good people. And through all of it, our young staff stepped up in ways I could never have imagined and kept our very young company running.
What Mike Taught Me
In the fall of 2013, just a few months after we opened, Rob and I were planning a beer mile for our Oktoberfest. I wanted the proceeds to go to clear cell sarcoma research. My brother’s cancer. Mike said absolutely not. A police sergeant in a nearby town, Sgt. Mike Wilson, had just been killed in the line of duty while responding to a domestic violence call. Mike told me those proceeds should go to Sgt. Wilson’s family. He thought about how his police department and the entire community had responded during his own time of need, and he wanted to give back.
So that is what we did. Our very first canning run was for that fundraiser. We put Sgt. Wilson’s badge number, 405, on the cans.
My brother had cancer, and he told his sister to raise money for someone else. That is who Mike was.
He taught me to lift heavy. Not just physically, although he did plenty of that. Emotionally. Pick people up. Help people up. He taught me not to wallow. He taught me to invite people in, always, no matter what. He taught me that family is everything.
Those lessons are baked into how I run FMBrew every single day, whether I realize it or not.
We started offering health insurance to our staff in late 2015. We are small. The law does not require it. But I watched my brother fight for treatments in a system that ultimately failed him, and I decided our people would never have to fight that same fight if I could help it.
We named a beer after him, a Belgian Tripel called NinerStrong. We nicknamed our first two big 60 barrel tanks “the twins” after Laynie and Rylie. His ashes are stored in a custom growler, an extra large one, because a regular growler was not big enough for Mike. His fingerprints are all over this brewery.
He Still Shows Up
At his funeral, my family huddled together before we left the funeral home. Pearl Jam was playing softly through the speakers, his playlist. And right at that moment, the lyric came through: “I just want to scream, Hello.” A few years later, I was working late at the brewery. The taproom was open and the music was going. And all of a sudden I heard it again. “I just want to scream, Hello.” Stops me in my tracks every single time.
When the Ben Allen Band plays “You Should Be Here” at our events, I cry through that whole song.
When I see a hawk, I believe he is near and protecting me.
The first time we won Best Brewery in Florida, the awards ceremony was on March 6th. His birthday.
He keeps showing up.
What I Would Tell Him
Mike, I wish you could see what FMBrew has become. I wish you could see the fundraisers we have done for fallen officers and kids fighting cancer, where we gave 100% of our profits. I wish you could have seen Rob build a mobile laundromat after Hurricane Ian to help our neighbors. I wish you could have seen us win 53 medals and get named Best Large Brewery in Florida. Twice. I know you would be incredibly proud.
I think you would also tell me to stop crying and go do something useful.
I miss you every day. Happy birthday, Bro.
