Published June 12, 2026

Michael Makemson may have first realized he was comfortable around me when he stopped what he was doing in the community laundry room, laughed and smiled.

“I’m folding my underwear in front of you,” he said, almost in disbelief.

That’s as good a way as any to begin an improbable friendship, I suppose.

Here I was, a trans woman who towered over him, sitting in my long T-shirt lounger and waiting for the washer to finish cleaning my clothes. He didn’t know me from Eve. But we had a good chat, the first of many.

We saw each other many times after that, often in the laundry room. Sometimes he was there before most people were awake, scrubbing and disinfecting the washing machines with the cleaning products he’d carried down two flights of stairs.

He died a few days ago, some seven or so years after we met. He was 76.

The laundry room already misses him. I miss him.

We lived in the same building

Mike (the name he went by in identifying himself to me the day we met) was a resident of the apartment building for more than 20 years, I’m told. I moved into it in early 2018.

Sometimes he was coming as I was going, or going as I was coming, whether it be in the laundry room or the apartment building. We both appreciated that it dates to the late 1920s.

I don’t remember a lot about our first conversation, although I remain tickled that, as he put away his tighty-whities, he seemed surprised by how at ease he was with this stranger named Carly. We learned more about each other in subsequent chats.

One thing I’ve come to marvel at since moving to the Pacific Northwest in 2010 is how life’s zigs and zags make for quite a map of how all of our paths cross. So, you started over there, and I started years later, way down south of you, and we ended up here, together?

As we discovered years ago, the roads we traveled came much closer together in time than we’d first realized. For example, he once worked at the small newspaper in Oregon where I did after moving up here from Louisiana 16 years ago.

“Wait, you worked where? You lived where?”

Additionally, we had both attended seminary.

“Catholic seminary? For real?”

If I may be permitted a pun, Mike may have been on the grounds as a student when I visited a seminarian friend at a theology college in the Midwest more than 40 years ago. He struggled to recall his precise seminary timeline, so we were never sure.

He was beaming in May 2025 upon learning that the newly elected successor to Pope Francis was from Chicago, the first person born in the United States to become the head of the Catholic Church. Mike and I had a spirited hallway conversation about Pope Leo.

We both wrote and loved words.

“Wait, you’re a writer?”

I’m sure he’d have come up with a less clunky title than mine for this post, but the one I wrote has the virtue of being from the heart — and inspired by a title he chose years ago.

Soon after Mike told me about his book, “Grounds for Discussion,” I bought a copy. It’s a gorgeous achievement, in my view. I rarely provide a link to the site owned by Jeff Bezos, but the reviews there are lovely, and I hope coffee lovers check them — and his book — out. I love that the description says “the book is a great companion while settling down to enjoy the moment for the moment.”

And wouldn’t you know, we both had gone to the same local coffee shop.

We never had coffee together

Mike lived an interesting life. He once worked in the medical world. On the porch of our building, he perked up when I used the word “efficacy” about pills, even complimenting me on my pronunciation. He added that many people say it wrong, and he repeated the word, pronouncing it differently than I had. “That’s how to say it,” he added.

I was confused. My pronunciation, not his, aligned with Merriam-Webster’s. What to make of that?

Maybe I misheard him. Maybe he was repeating the incorrect pronunciation, noting, “That’s how they say it.” There’s a lot of highway noise outside our building.

For me, at any rate, it was a beautiful reminder that so little of life has smooth edges, even when we get each other’s meaning. Did he understand me? Yes. Did I understand him? Yes. The rest, friends, is crap. What’s fun about all of us speaking the same? Boring.

One of my regrets is that we never sat down for coffee together. Another is that I didn’t tell him how wonderful his book is. Still, I feel privileged that I got to know him better than some of my friends here did, even those whose apartments were closer to his than mine.

“I didn’t know him very well,” neighbor Valerie Eliason said, “but he was kind.”

It was Valerie who told me that Mike had died, sending me a text message yesterday as apartment staff continued to remove his belongings from his living space. Valerie spoke with one of them.

“He talked about Mike’s clocks and how they’ve all been chiming and chirping while he’s been sorting through the apartment,” she said. Then, she added that the staffer said it’s been as if Mike had been joking with him and communicating through the clocks.

Speaking of …

“He had a pretty regular ‘sneeze schedule,’ and it always made me smile when I heard him because it was like clockwork,” Valerie said. “Down to the minute.”

I will be thinking about that, and Valerie, for some time. Oh, the things we come to count on.

Upon hearing the news of his death, I knew I had to write about him. Everyone deserves to be remembered.

One word comes to mind

No, it’s not “coffee.” The word I’ve been thinking about since I got the news is “community.” Valerie used it, as she often does about this place. I’ve used it many times about where we both live.

“(This apartment building) is our community,” she said. “We’re all connected.”

After she told me about Mike’s death, I made a cup of coffee and sat down with his book.

Community Coffee is my comfort cup at home, but I think I need to stop at Thatcher’s again soon.

The pandemic robbed us of more time together

Early in 2020, I began walking into the laundry room one morning only for Mike to hear me, turn around and ask that I wait to enter until he’d left. He was understandably concerned about what we were calling the coronavirus at the time.

A few years and vaccination shots later, he asked me why I was still masking. I answered that I was probably more at risk than he was. Also, although the U.S. national emergency in response to COVID-19 ended in April 2023, the pandemic didn’t. We didn’t argue, didn’t take up battle positions. We respected each other’s personal space as best we could.

But this decade kept us from spending more time together, and I hate that for me. Talking with him was so easy and relaxing. One of our last conversations in the “before” times was about the death of his last surviving family member, and what that meant. It was an honor to sit quietly and let him open up to me that way.

I can still hear his voice. “Hi, Carly,” he’d say when he saw me. He never asked “what … are you?” or said any of the other rude things cisgender people have said to me. He was safe for me, and he was my friend.

Now he’s gone.

I don’t know who will clean the washing machines downstairs now. Maybe it will have to be me if I can find a way to speed up my disjointed recovery from my May 27 surgery and last year’s fall and sleep less than 16 hours a day. I think he’d like that, although I know he’d have some pointers for me after watching me try to do it for the first time.

Which, fair.

I know I’d like that.

Sending love. Protect your peace. Tell your friends they matter to you. Pick a topic and the grounds for discussion. Enjoy the moment for the moment.

♥

Thank you

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