Looking forward...

March 2, 2017

Dear Michael,

You would be 50 years old today. Four years and nine months have passed since you died. Often you come to visit me in my dreams and I am happy. At those times I feel your comfortable presence, we talk, I feel your soft cheek against mine, and I hope the visits will never stop.

The loss of you in my life remains hard to bear and I don't think that this will every change. But I am so grateful to you for your music. I have the miracle of hearing your voice and "being" with you whenever I wish.

We know that you recorded your music so it would be shared and we have been working to bring your El Dorado album to completion. On April 28th, your loving friends will be sharing it with the world.

Your are remembered as a warm and loving, kind-hearted man, a musician of many talents, and a wonderful friend and son. Our hope is that you will also be remembered for your original music—that it will become a lasting legacy.

Your loving Mom and best friend,

Marilyn

Remembering Michael

Three-year Awful Anniversary

It has been two years, 11 months and 4 days since Michael's passing. Each year the two dates of March 2nd, the day he was born, and June 10th, the day he died, are emotionally loaded and a difficult time. Managing the loss has gotten easier with time, but it will always be a huge source of sorrow that he is no longer here to finish his life projects and realize his great potential.

Not About Me

I have not posted here very often because this was Michael's blog about his Cancer journey and my posts are about missing him, which is inevitably about me, that seemed somehow wrong.

Announcing Michael's First CD Release

However, remembering and honoring Michael is important and this blog seems an okay place to do this. So I want to announce and celebrate the completion of Michael's first posthumous CD, "All Their Best," a collection of cover songs he recorded from 2009 to 2012.

Sharing with Family, Fans, and Friends

It was a labor of love and sorrow for Sean Melom, Kevin, and I to compile and create this CD. While it is not perfect, we are pleased with the results and hope that he would have been too. It is a joy to hear him sing and laugh and play all of his instruments. We want everyone to have the pleasure.

We have printed 300 copies and plan to give them away to anyone who wants one. I will announce an Open House CD Release Party on Facebook and here so we can get them out to people. We can't sell them because we do not have copyright release from the songwriters. But we would be happy to accept contributions towards the production of his next CD which is in the works. This will be of his own compositions.

Sneak Preview of CD

I can't give you a sound sampling, but the photo below is the cover art. It was taken by Jen Lynch on their trip to New Orleans in November 2010. (Love the smile.)

And his selfie photos below are on the back of the CD. They are from October 3, 2011.

Posted May 14, 2015 by Marilyn (Mom) Matheny

Birthday Message from Mom

 Dear Michael, today is your birthday and it is a reminder of the magnitude of my loss. I have celebrated this day with you for 47 years, with cakes and cards and phone calls and family gatherings. It is hard to accept that you are really gone, it seems that you are just out of reach, somewhere close, felt, but not seen. I wish there were a telephone connection to the afterworld so that I could talk to you.

I want to tell you about your car, the Honda Element, how proud I feel to drive it, how it feels like being hugged by you every time I get into it, and how I appreciate the way it has handled all that this awful Minnesota winter has thrown at it. The memories of you that it contains give me comfort.

I am so grateful that there were no unspoken words or unresolved issues between us and so happy that you were able to say to the world that you loved your Mom. I will never forget my public birthday hug at the Cedar. Thank you for that and so much more.

I was so proud of you and your bandmates of Long Straight Forever for that glowing night at the Cedar when you were on fire and you finally realized what we already knew, that you really were great a musician.

I love you, Michael, I hope you keep playing, somewhere, somehow.

Mom

Missing Michael

Cried myself to sleep last night.
I am not ashamed to say I do that often.
Woke with a poem forming in my brain.
A poet I am not, but I share it anyway.

Gone
Away from us
Away from the pain
Letting go on that bright day

Brown eyes dark and dimming
He is not in his eyes
But he is in there, somewhere

Reaching out for one last pet for Boo
His grasps our hands to help him through
His fear is strong, so is his grip

Love flows to him and from him
We stroke and hold him and tell him he is beautiful
and so very much loved

His breathing slows and deepens
Wrenching, racking breaths
One last shuddering breath

And he is gone

I miss you so much
My son, my friend

Waiting for the Wisdom to Come.

The past year has been full of sad celebrations and painful anniversaries in our Life Without Michael. This month, the month when we all knew, really knew, that we were losing him, has been very hard, and it will not get any easier in the weeks that follow. 

There still are no words for the enormity of my loss, but I struggle to find them anyway. I want my remembrances to be about Michael and the mark he left on this world. But mostly I see the hole that he left in mine. 

His death and my grief have changed my life. The profound sense of loss leads me to read and think about the grief process and seek understanding. I keep hoping that time will provide answers. Each month has brought an increased sense of "normalcy" to my New Normal life, but I am still waiting for the wisdom and I mourn the brown-eyed boy who was my son. I miss my Michael so very, very much.

I watched the "GriefWalker" documentary tonight and was introduced to Steve Jenkinson's ideas on grief and dying. He message is that we should not fear Death and that Grief and Love of Life are two twin parts of being human. Perhaps he has some answers for me.

Photo by Michael David Matheny

Remembering Shandar

My first gaming experiences were at Marshall-U, in 7th grade. Mike wasn't there yet, but he started in the next year, as close as I can remember. We played AD&D and Traveller, mostly. D&D was great, because fantasy is great. But there was always something special about Traveller. For one thing, it was science fiction, and if there's one thing that's better than Fantasy, it's SF.

For another, Star Wars had brought SF to the big screen in 1977, when I was 11 and Mike 10.

And for another, Traveller had the best character generation system ever. Unlike D&D, where you'd roll your character's stats and then start them on their adventuring career, Traveller had you roll dice to take your character through a pre-adventuring career, with terms of service in the military, or as a diplomat, or whatever you chose. Depending on how long you stayed in, what choices you made and how the dice fell, you could wind up with medals honoring your service, a membership in the fabled Travellers Aid Society or even a starship of your own. You could also wind up dead.

Yes, you could get killed before you started playing. It was, in a word, awe-inspiring. Here was a game where getting ready to play was a game in and of itself. We loved it.

One of Mike's characters from these early Traveller games stayed with him over the years. Shandar was a recurring character for Mike, someone he brought into other games and into short stories that he wrote. Shandar was a starship captain, a free trader and sometime mercenary, familiar with firearms and willing to use them. He was from a strange icy planet, where the night was twice as long as the day. And he had the most amazing name:  Shandar Ben Bransvik Fen Snar Snar Fen Grog. The first time I heard that name I knew I'd remember it forever, and to this day I love it.

There's a new edition of Traveller out now, from its original creator Marc Miller. When I found out about the project on Kickstarter, Mike was still alive, and I told him about it. He was excited that Traveller was still around, but I think he knew he wouldn't live to see it. I pitched in for the Kickstarter, hoping that I'd get a chance to show it to Mike.

I didn't, of course.


But when I got the email from Marc Miller asking me to choose the name I wanted on my rewards for the Kickstarter project, the choice was obvious. Traveller 5 arrived today. It's a grand thing, and in the box were two cards proudly bearing the name of Shandar Ben Bransvik.

Tonight, I'll sit down with a handful of dice and a copy of Traveller. And I'll raise a glass in memory of Mike, and of Shandar. And I'll see what the future holds.

Happy Birthday Michael

On March 2, 1965, Michael David Matheny was born, two weeks late by my, and my doctor's, calculations, a big (8+ lbs), brown-eyed, long-limbed, chubby, healthy baby boy. Easy going and patient in all things except food. He arrived into a household in turmoil. Three months after his birth and two and a half years after arriving in Holland, his father and I were packed and on our way back to the United States. 

Telling the stories of Michael's life will give me pleasure and focus in the months and years ahead. I will post some of them here and I look forward to hearing Michael stories from others. Today I'm savoring some recent photos of him. Each is a story. I hope you enjoy them.

New Orleans with Jen, 2011.

New Orleans with Jen, 2011.

 Nye's Birthday Party, with Kevin, March 2011.

Nye's Birthday Party, singing to Jen, March 2011.

NewYork City with Jen, 2011

 North Shore? with Jen.

New Orleans with Jen, 2011.

 Picking out pipes in Dublin with Ray and Gabriel, 2011

Meeting Boo.

Key West with Ray. 

How do we mark Michael's birthday...??

I got an email from Amazon telling me that Michael Matheny would be have a birthday in a week, on March the 2nd, and that I might be thinking about buying a book for him. I didn't need their commercial message to remind me, since it has been looming large in my mind for months.

It is all hard, this living without him, but somehow this has been very hard. How do I/we acknowledge this day? His wonderful warm presence is gone from our lives, but I have marked this day every year for 45 years and can't stop the practice even if I wished to do so. Which I don't. But I worried about what seemed the right way to do it?

I decided that my first requirement for the day was to spend it with Kevin and this I will do. We will be together with family and close friends. I think that surviving it, more or less intact, was the second requirement. I am hopeful about this happening also. The third was to give and get hugs from Jen and Ray and Matt and that I will do also, not on the birthday itself, but close enough.

I was aware that Michael liked to celebrate his birthday by having a big dinner party with lots of friends, at his favorite restaurant of the moment. I went to these parties and got to know his friends.

He enjoyed them a lot, both the parties and his friends. And I did too.

And that is part of what made this birthday hard for me. There are many friends who mourn him and want to remember him on this day. I wanted to have a Michael dinner party so I could see and hug them all for the therapy that this would provide.

I have not in fact felt up to organizing such an event, but if there are many who would want this moment to happen, please email me and we will make it happen.

Photos are from his party at the French Meadow, in March 2010, where I met Jen, wonderful Jen, for the first time. She was such a bright spot in his life that seeing her always makes me cry, with joy, I think.

Let me know how you will mark this day.

Mom

This is probably going to make you cry.

As I write this, I'm waiting for iMovie to finish prepping Rocket Ship, so I can upload it to Youtube. I've spent the last 30 minutes or so working with it - Mike recorded it and added effects, but he didn't flip the video, so I needed to do that.

And I needed to add a title screen, and a copyright notice. Fair warning, Glee: You bastards steal my brother's music, and I will spend myself fucking broke fighting you. I'm not going to be reasonable about that.

So, Rocket Ship. I had no idea he'd written this song. And I had no idea he was writing music at all. He recorded this on February 10th. For some perspective, this is what he was writing at that time. The cancer was back in force, we'd learned that radiation therapy was not an option because it was back in multiple locations, he'd started chemo again and was dealing with internal bleeding from the botched catheterization. He was in pain all of the time, medicated to the point of dopiness, and alone.

And he was still making music, still writing songs. I hadn't heard the full version of this song until now. When mom posted the lyrics a couple of days ago, I was surprised to see that there was a part I hadn't heard before.

The part I'd heard is an upbeat declaration that he's going to fight this:

Rocket-ship, rocket-ship
Just close the hatch and hit the switch
Rocket-ship OH, rocket ship
Carry me away, fly me a-way
Rocket-ship, rocket ship
Take me far, far a-way 

Out past Mars, and out past Ju-pi-ter
Faster than light and gaining speed
If I can’t beat it then I’ll out-run it
I’ll go so fast, it can’t catch me 

I’ll fly round the earth, Just like Superman
Spin it ‘round, turn back time
Rocket-ship OH, rocket-ship
Send me to a better time 

They say I can’t change, what I can’t change
What’s done is done and set in stone
(But if)  I can go back, I’ll make them see  
I’ll grab a chisel, and shatter that stone

The part I hadn't heard is softer, sadder:

But what if I -- came --- back (…)
And it was all…  the… same (…)
I couldn’t make it go away (…)
Would you still
Would you still
Would you still (…)
love me

Oh yes, I still love you. 

I miss him so much. 

You can see the video here. 

Rocket Ship, Oh Rocket Ship

One year ago today, Michael, wrote the rough draft for the lyrics of the song "Rocket Ship," below. He recorded it the next day and made a movie of himself playing it a few days later. I'd like to post the movie to UTube, with Kevin's help. It seems like an proper anniversary for the song. It is a heart breaker, but a great song. It speaks to his strong will to fight and to win his battle, "If I can't beat then I'll out-run it." Would that he could have.

I found this image with the music. It is the Bracket Park Rocket Ship, as it is today. It has been moved from its original location, enhanced and is now an art object, but it was originally part of the children's playground at Bracket Park, in south Minneapolis.

In 1970, Michael's father and I looked at and decided to buy a house in the Seward Neighborhood. We took Michael, age 3, and Kevin, age 4, to see the new house, which they loved, and on our way back to our rental in Bloomington, we drove past this rocket. We stopped and made our two children very happy by letting them explore it for what seemed like hours. It seemed a good omen that the home and the neighborhood would be a good place for children to grow up in. And it was.

Rocket Ship

©Michael Matheny @1/31/12

Key of D (Mandola capoed in 2)

            D                       G         D

Rocket-ship, rocket-ship

        G                             D       A

Just close the hatch and hit the switch

D                            G        D

Rocket-ship OH, rocket ship

G                       D              A

Carry me away, fly me a-way

D                            G        D

Rocket-ship, rocket ship

                G    A    D

Take me far, far a-way

(leads?)

(X) (X) (X) (X)  -  -  -

D                             G           D      

Out past Mars, and out past Ju-pi-ter

D                                A          D

Faster than light and gaining speed

D                                G        D

If I can’t beat it then I’ll out-run it  ^

D                         A              D

I’ll go so fast, it can’t catch me

I’ll fly round the earth, Just like Superman

Spin it ‘round, turn back time

Rocket-ship OH, rocket-ship

Send me to a better time

They say I can’t change, what I can’t change

What’s done is done and set in stone

(But if)  I can go back, I’ll make them see   ^

I’ll grab a chisel, and shatter that stone

(Lead (S))

Chorus

  

Bridge

                    G     C           A

But what if I -- came --- back (…)

                   G        C      A

And it was all…  the… same (…)

                  G         C    A

I couldn’t make it go away (…)

                  G

Would you still

                  F#m (?)

Would you still

                    A

Would you still (…)

        D

love me

Chorus

(Possible Acapella chorus)

Possible 3^rd Chorus

End:  (X) (X) (X) (X)  -  -  -

P.S. I shared this with LoJo Russo today. She made me aware of the significance of the date. Thank you for that, LoJo, and for your love and support. She too, thought that we could handle seeing this now, I truly hope so. He changed the lyrics somewhat in the movie, making it even more poignant. I hope it is a good thing for all of you to see and hear him and remember how much we miss him. I'd love to hear your comments.

Posted by Marilyn (eclector2), Michael's Mom

El Dorado posted to Youtube

I've posted Michael's recording of El Dorado to Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhKxHtCV150

It's hard to watch. He looks good, and he sounds good. It reminds me of what I have lost, and it makes me cry. It's beautiful, and I am so glad he recorded it, because at least we still have this.

Michael's Music Legacy

Just before Christmas, I was exploring Michael computer and I found the following note from him to us. It was dated February 20, 2012:

Faced with the harsh reality of a serious cancer diagnosis in 2010, I began to realize that none of us will be here forever. In early 2012, while undergoing chemotherapy and taking advantage of good days and nights as they came, I slowly began working on cataloging and archiving all the songs and tunes that I have written. I also include a few covers (obscure and not so obscure) that I play. I will note which songs are mine and which I have covered. 

Some songs also appear on various recordings here and there, and some are seen here for the first time. Many of these are songs that no one -- not even those closest to me or my bandmates -- have heard me play. I thought it would be nice to get them down, just for the record. 

The video is terrible, and is captured using the built-in iSight camera in my Mac into PhotoBooth. The audio, which is all that matters anyhow, was captured using a Zoom h4n stereo recorder, linked via USB to the desktop. The recordings will not be perfect, and are usually single takes. 

I retain copyright to all of my own songs, and likewise I also copyright the arrangements of my covers.

His movies and the recordings were not new to me, but now I understood them. It was really important for him to capture his music, to have it live on, and to share with us. There was already plan for a CD that was nearly completed, but with these new recordings there will be enough music for perhaps 2 CD's. 

Ray and Jen and Kevin and I are greatly motivated to help Michael see those dreams realized. Ray will do his sound engineering magic with the recordings that Michael has left and other musicians, like Matt Ogden, will help and there will be soon be more Michael music recordings that we can all enjoy.

And it is a joy, I made a CD of his new recordings and played it all through Christmas and New Years. It was a balm to my sad spirit. I had a wonderful moment while napping on the day before Christmas. Mike S. played Michael's CD for me as I was dosing off and I thought "Oh, how wonderful, Michael is here." Almost, but not quite. But it was beautiful and I was so happy for a moment.

There are several of his movies that Kevin and I want to share on You Tube. The first one we will put up as a present to all of us. He is singing "Eldorado" and he looks so great, the way we want to remember him.

Best wishes to you, his friends and family, in the new year and thank you for loving him and helping to keep the sweet memories of him alive.

Michael's Mom

Life After Michael, Six Months On,
How Are We Changed?

Aching loss and constant awareness of his absence. Sadness and bitterness at his life left unfinished. Surrounded by his beautiful, well crafted and quality things. Pain from sudden memories like  lightening bolts. Joy for his music and the sound of his voice. Grateful that he escaped death so many times. Thankful that he was in my life for so long. Awed by all he did in his short life. Amazed by the number of people who loved him and were touched by him.

How do I remember him, honor him and yet go on with my own life?
How has his death changed me? Do I live differently?
Has the sorrow marked me and set me apart?
How have his friends been affected by his death?

What did I learn from Michael? 

I see that I am gentler with myself and others.
Gentleness was always my way, but I more quickly give permission to myself and others to be imperfect and incomplete.

I want to do things I have left undone.
He was so tenacious and pushed the envelope so hard.
I had given up on making any further mark or contribution.
I was old and failing so why even bother to try.
But I saw that he fought every day, not just to live, but to fulfill his dreams.
He planned, until the day he died, to get up out of that bed and have a good life:
to marry Jen, buy a house with her, finish his album, write more music,
become a teacher, go to Holland with his Mom and his brother,
travel with Ray and Gabriel, raise greyhounds,
enjoy the company of his family and friends ...

So, I have a life, a good life, and damnit, I better use it well.
That's what I learned from Michael.

Other Lessons Learned:

Be open and honest with my feelings.
Let sadness be there, but let joy also come in.
Be patient with others and with myself.
Be OK with retiring from the world for a day or a week when needed.
Let those you love know it.
Kiss them and hug them whenever they are within reach.
Keep pursuing the things you want from life.
Do not be discouraged, keep fighting.

My Grief Journal:

Month One
Will I survive this?
Do I even want to?
Can you die of grief?

Month Two
I guess I will live.
I seem to have chosen Life.
One foot ahead of the other.

Month Three
Soggy, tears and stress.
Saying goodbye to his house.
So sorry for all of us.

Month Four
Drowning in his things.
Everything different and changed.
Wanting the normal and comfortable back.

Month Five
Looking for focus and purpose.
Finding it in cooking and working with clay again.
Understanding that I will never be the same.

Month Six
Mind returning to better function.
Being busy is good therapy.
Sadness and tears are there, but do not interfere with life.


Recently Learned:
A grieving person experiences pain. The MRI of the brain of a grieving person looks like that of a person in real physical pain. But then we knew that. Right?

Missing Michael

I am missing Michael very deeply today. Though I miss him nearly every hour of every day, in sometimes heart stopping ways, today I want to reach out and TALK to him. I need his ideas on something that is troubling me.

He would listen to me in his you-have-my-complete-attention kind of way, respect my worries, give me insight, add his own personal knowledge, and provide help and the kind of support and balance that only he can give me because he is Michael, my son, and Kevin's Brother, the missing piece of my family. I miss you so much, Michael.

My daughter made me cry

Nell made me cry tonight.

She didn't mean to. She was catching up with a friend she hasn't seen in a couple of weeks, chattering away about a book that the two of them have just read. They were having a very animated conversation about plot points and characters and the frustration that both of them have with the ending, and at one point Nell remarked to her friend Maggie "if anyone is hearing just one side of this conversation they probably think we're crazy."

She got off the phone, and asked me a question. "Dad," she said. "When you were little, or when you were my age at any rate, did you have a friend you could talk to about anything at all?"

I couldn't answer her, because my voice wouldn't work.

I had a brother. And I could talk to him about anything at all, and he understood my jokes, and I loved him.

The last thing I said to him, when he was able to respond, was "I love you." And through the breathing mask, he said "I love you too."

I miss him every day.

The Long Goodbye

Michael died nearly 5 months ago; a hard, hard, thing to come to terms with. We, who loved him and miss him, have tried to find ways to say goodbye. The letting go is hard, our respect so deep, and the missing him so huge that this seems impossible to do. It seems that with a traditional (sort of) memorial, an Irish Wake, a goodbye to his house, and three separate memorial concerts, we should be able to say that we have paid our respects and completed our goodbyes.

Yes, a part of me knows that there is really no need to say goodbye to him at all because our memories of him will remain with us forever. We also have his beautiful and soul searching music to console us. And, joyfully, he was composing and recording to the end, which means that there are more recording of his music yet to come.

Nevertheless there is still one piece missing.

We found that Michael had made a list of things he wanted us to do for the wake, but we found the list only after the wake was past. As we read it we were relieved and pleased that we had done well in bringing together the people and music that he would have wanted, except for one thing. He wanted the poem, The Lake Isle of Innisfree, to be read by his friend, Bill Lochen. It was to be, I think, his goodbye to us. It seems a message that he was, and that we should be, at peace about his passing.

So I reproduce it here for all his friends and family, his parting message to us. Imagine it being read by Bill Lochen, or you don't know Bill, imagine perhaps Patrick Stewart's voice.

Posted by Mom

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core. 

By William Butler Yeats

Minnesota Renaissance Festival tribute show

I just got this from Michael's Gallowglass bandmate Lojo Russo:

You are invited to a special memorial show for Michael Matheny on Saturday, Sept. 29 at 5pm on the Pavilion Stage at the MN Renaissance Festival.

This show will be a time of remembrance and celebration and will include musical performances by Gallowglass and many of your favorite acts from the MN Renaissance Festival. A traditional “skiffle session” will follow these performances.

Many thanks to Carr Hagerman and the staff at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival for making this happen.

The Minnesota Renaissance Festival ("Festival" to some of us, "RenFest" to others, and simply "the Fair" or "the Renaissance" to many more) was a big part of Michael's life. He discovered it in 1983, I think. I know he talked me into going out there in 1984, in the summer between high school and college. He was assistant stage manager of Crown, where the featured act was Penn & Teller. Over the next few years, he talked Ken Larson out of being a juggler and into being a musician, met Lojo and (after some initial rough patches) formed Gallowglass Irish Trio, which made him part of the Festival forever.

There's a lot of history there, and I'm glad that the musicians and cast members will have the chance to remember Michael in the place where one of his stories began.

Probate as a learning process

So how does this probate thing work?

Basically, when someone dies, we have to figure out what to do with their estate - the things that are legally theirs, including both assets and debts. 

Someone needs to do this work. In our case, I'm doing it, since Michael wanted me to take care of his finances. I'm getting a lot of help from Christina and Mom, and the rest of the support network, but there's a lot to do. 

First is getting the estate into probate. We're fortunate in that since Michael's assets were not significant, we can do "informal" probate. This means getting someone (me) named as Personal Representative for the estate. To do that, the primary heirs (Mom & Dad, since Michael was not married and had no children) needed to both renounce their claims to the estate and nominate me as Personal Rep. 

A note on "renouncing claims" - someone who does this is not giving up the ability to receive things from the estate, they're just declaring that it's okay if someone else (the Personal Rep) makes the decisions. 

I also have to petition the court to be named the Personal Rep. This petition needs to include an inventory of the assets of the estate. If there's too much money, or complex property stuff, then you may need to go into formal probate. That looks like it sucks; there are a lot of forms. 

Then we wait for the court to process all of this. If the petition is granted (and it was), then the court can issue "Testamentary Letters" to let asset-holders know that the Personal Rep is indeed the Personal Rep and has standing to do things like get access to bank accounts and safe deposit boxes. 

We also need to post a notice of Michael's death, to let any potential creditors know that they have a limited time (4 months from the date of my petition being granted) to make claims against his estate. We did this already. 

I opened an estate account as well, to make keeping track of all this easier. And I hired a lawyer (my friend John Fossum, who helped us with the Power of Attorney in Michael's final days). 

I got an Tax ID number for the estate; this will be needed for the final tax return. 

The next step (which I'm working on now) is to get letters out to the companies that have Michael's assets (like his bank), asking them to transfer the funds to the estate account. I haven't found a good template for that in an hour or so of Google searching, so I'm making that up. Once I get a form that works (that is, one that results in the bank just transferring funds without calling me for clarifications), I'll post it online. 

- Kevin