Mike Manlove: The Fungus Among Us (Copy)

Mike Manlove: the M in my Love With Roots

I’m meandering through an alphabet of gratitude, celebrating things with roots—biological roots or life and love roots. M is, of course, Mike Manlove my late husband (as in dead, in life he was very punctual—which I’m not) and mycelium (fungus).

Somewhere, in heaven or on some other plane of existence, Mike Manlove is laughing at my comparing him to fungal networks. He gets to use two phrases he liked, “The fungus among us? I resemble that remark.”

Pry up the corner of a boulder, fuzzy with lichen, and you’ll find a dense, pale web of fungus. Unseen (except when mushrooms erupt) they enrich the soil, the plants, the life around them. Mycelium networks weave connections between roots. They transform dead trees, rocks, and even toxins into nutrients which they share with plants and organisms around them. With Mike, connections were physical, funny, and the essence of life.

Hugs were rare in my family. I was reticent, maybe like granite, when it came to public displays of affection.

On our first date, Mike said, “Let’s play airport!”

Broad daylight, we’re out walking in my hometown. “Um, how do you play that?”

“Like this. Oh Becky, I’m going to miss you!” He wrapped his big arms around me, lifted me off my feet, and kissed my forehead. He loosened his grip a little and I slipped back down, laughing. But immediately, he grabbed me back up, saying, “Oh you’re back!” and kissed me on the cheek. I was breathless. He let me slide down his chest, but just as my toes touched the sidewalk, he swept me off my feet once more. With a melodramatic whine he said, “Oh no, don’t go!” Our first big kiss and I was snorting.

Mike had a big chest and arms. He was an all-state wrestler in high school and always a powerful paddler. He gladly played hugs with our kids, friends, family, ladies at church, and acquaintances. He delighted in wrapping his arms around big burly guys who reacted as if they were in a wrestling match.

Mike was an earthy human. He was an Elder in the Presbyterian Church whose favorite word was f**k, a gregarious woodsman, and a goofy workaholic. His avocation was working as a Wilderness Ranger and then as a Trail Engineer for the Forest Service. He called himself a ‘dirtball ranger’ and a ‘farty old engineer.’ Many people volunteered for trail work because of him. A rainy day on his crew, creeping along a trail with nippers, wading through face-whipping brush, swatting at black flies, and grubbing out rocks was hilarious and rewarding.

He trained as a wilderness EMT then served his community as a First Responder, on ski patrol, and as a Medical Unit Leader on an Incident Management Team. In other words, Mike dealt with people in their most painful moments, their hardest places, with their most intimate needs. Yet people he helped often came away with a smile, even a chuckle.

Mike cleared toxins from conflict. He was the sole member of the Buildings and Grounds Committee at our church. When he noticed that the stain-glass windows were losing solder, some members saw this as the chance to install beautiful but very expensive stain glass art. As Mike noted, the mottled yellow ones looked like something from an old gymnasium. Others (including me) railed against spending so much on our own church when there were so many other needs. Mike rallied everyone to the cause when he urged the congregation to raise double the amount of money needed so that an equal amount could go to other causes. And our small church did just that. He often said the real miracle of the loaves and fishes was that Jesus got people to share.

Mycelium, fungal networks in the soil, gather a tree that has died into their web. Roots, bark, and finally the heart of the tree as it sinks to the earth is consumed. What is hard, organic fact is transformed into nourishment for the living beings still present. Love and story, memory and yearning can do the same for a loved one. That I continue to love Mike is no surprise, but that his love for me endures amazes me.

Mike’s been invisible to us for fifteen years already. Yet, his influence continues. During our twenty-five years, six months, and two days of marriage, we raised two children, made a home in the woods of northeastern Minnesota, and figured out how to come together as a couple. Our kids are largely influenced by his humor, his take on life, his fears, loves, strengths and challenges. And who they are influences who I am as a mother and now grandmother. His influences spiral out from his center in the way that mycelia grow. A complex web, dense in the center, trailing to tendrils

Our son had just begun a Master’s degree in mathematics and our daughter was just completing both a high school and an AA degree when their dad died. Each of them had just suffered hard places in relationships. Mike’s last advice to our daughter was “Dump the chump.” He was gone at crucial points in both their lives, but his tenacious love and his practicality provided soil for their roots. They didn’t topple. Our resilient kids are delightful, responsible adults. They each contribute beautifully to their communities and families.

Who I am now is on a different trajectory because of my life with Mike. We don’t get his Manlove hugs anymore, but his love hasn’t disappeared. Thoughts of him have kept me from being swept away by grief. And sometimes yelling at him is cathartic. “Michael, where the hell are you?”

Much of what I know about the ecology of northeastern Minnesota, I learned from Mike. One of the first things he taught me was how to identify different tree species by their silhouette, bark, needles, leaves, and where they are growing. Looking for land, driving along a property line with a realtor who really wanted to sell us a 10-acre plot with a tumble-down shack on it. Looking out the window, Mike said, “So this is all low ground then?”

Realtor, “Oh no. There’s a bit of swamp on the back corner but everything else is good, solid high ground.”

Mike, “Huh, don’t usually see black ash on high ground. Wow.”

He had a fire fighter’s distrust of balsam, called them ‘fire ladders.’ (The fire ecology term is ladder fuels.) Mike believed the miracle of life was that ice—the solid form of water—floats. In that way, our myriad waters—bogs, swamps, lakes, ponds, even most rivers—freeze over during our long cold winters but don’t freeze to the bottom. Leaving liquid water below as a medium for so much aquatic life.

And since he died of a heart attack while hiking his favorite trail, I’ve found that grief—the solid form of life—also floats. That love remains liquid below. And now I’ve wandered off into a different metaphor. I wonder how mycelium, just one cell thick, survive being frozen. Frost reaches depths of six feet or better around here. And mycelium kick around in the top soil. That may be the better analogy anyway. Because grief dives down deep, enters at the cellular level. And at first, I couldn’t see how life would continue without Mike.

What I’ve learned is that my life isn’t without Mike. Twenty-five years, six months, and two days with a character as large, as basic, as funny as Mike doesn’t just evaporate. And I still talk to him:

Michael, I imagine dark rich loam around the roots shot through with mycelium, as my life is rich, sometimes dark, shot through with you. Mycelium, carrying messages from tree to tree, warning about toxins spilled, celebrating lengthening light.

Didn’t you do the same for me? Jostling me away from toxic thoughts, celebrating the spiral of seasons, calling me awake with a laugh.

Sometimes I wished for someone not quite so earthy. Or really, for you, to be a bit more refined. The words Fuck and fart reserved only for emergencies.

I didn’t know, until the largest church in town filled to overflowing, standing room not even enough for everyone to say good-bye. I didn’t know that others understood you were you. And loved you for it, too. Were you surprised too? You used to say I’d have to bribe three guys with a case of beer each to show up at your funeral.

In your eulogy I told everyone that ten years before, I’d thought about leaving you. (In this analogy, applying fungicide to my roots.) Our kids were shocked to hear it first from the pulpit. You probably were, too. I told everyone that I had become so focused on what you weren’t that I was ignoring what you were. And what you were was so much richer than what I thought I wanted.

Thank goodness for friends who helped me change my perspective. As a result, what turned out to be our last decade of marriage was our best.

Memories of you crop up like mushrooms, in unexpected places, in fantastical shapes, and riotous colors. Fifteen years later, friends still share stories of you. Our three-year-old granddaughter, Ailish, sticks out her tongue when she’s thinking hard. Our one-year-old granddaughter, Sive, bends her knees and bounces in her rubber boots. Despite your short time on earth, you are ubiquitous. Trying to squeeze you into a blog post is like trying to gather an entire fungal network into a cereal bowl.

Mike the Man We Love, thank you for your love and your life. God, thank You for giving us so much time with him. Thank You for him.

What Love with Roots things/people are you thankful for that starts with M?

For more on the amazing mycelium: Mycelium Running by Paul Stamets.

For more on Mike Manlove: Hauling Water by Becca Brin Manlove (me) published by Curious Cats, other Love With Roots blog posts, “Almost the Anniversary” a poem on this site, and (someday) my memoir, Sweet Dreams, Michael.