Good bye Micheal.

I remember the day after I purchased Casa De Compai, I was at the Finish Line ( a local expat bar ) and the owner and  a very good friend of mine ( also named Micheal )  told me an ex-employee of the Garden Condos had returned from Haiti and needed work. I hired this ex-employee, Micheal as soon as I saw him. That was 3 years ago. But I knew Micheal since 2010 when I purchased my first condo in Sosua in The Garden Condos ( http://www.thegardencondos.com ) Micheal would maintain the grounds, clean the pool, act as security durning the day. He was by far the of the most hard working man I have ever met in this town. The one issue we all had with him was he wouldn’t eat enough. He was skinny as a rail, to skinny! He would live on as little money as he could so he could send as much money as possible back home to Haiti. This is why I believe he is no longer with us today.

   The first time Micheal got really sick is when he was working at the Garden Condos. He was having trouble breathing, it was so bad that he wanted to return to Haiti for treatment. The developers of The Garden Condos at that time were Ron & Mona Blissett, and they had Micheal driven to the boarded with Haiti where his family received him. The owners at The Garden Condos were told then that Micheal had died, so when I was approached the Micheal M about Haitian Micheal needing a job I was happy he was alive and healthy. But it took a year for him to regain his health. He was that sick when he left Sosua.

As the build at Casa De Compai progressed over the first three years Micheal was an important member of the team. He lived on site, worked as hard as he ever had. He would even get hired by my contractors to work for them as well. Basically he would wake up early do the work needed at Casa De Compai, then work all day long for the contractor. He was also very smart with his money, he was able, with loans I gave him to build a house with four separate units in his home town. One unit lived his family, one for his mother and the other two rented out. In fact, he was even able to have 2 solar panels installed so his family would have lights at night and be able to listen to Christian radio.

In June 2017 Micheal came to me and said he needed to return to Haiti because his daughter was sick. While he was in Haiti he got sick and had to go the hospital because he had trouble breathing. This is the same reason he was sick before. This time he didn’t get better and he passed on. We don’t know what the reason was, we will never know. What we do know is we lost a good man that day.

If you knew Micheal you knew he was a Christian. He couldn’t read, but he would still open his bible every day and look at the words. He was also very active in the church, he would lend out money at times, he give away clothes that myself and other of his  expat friends would give him. But most importantly he would get his friends jobs. Every one of my employees  was a personal friend of his. I am very very thankful for my work force!  Micheal practiced what preached, he was very very respected in the community here. He was a good man. I can’t tell you how many times since Micheal death I have had his friends walk up to me and talk about him. Many couldn’t believe he passed or didn’t want to.  I got the same question every time, ” Is it true?”  He was a true pillar in his community, he was very well respected, I was told by more than one person ” His word was solid” Micheal left the world a better place by his actions and his humor, and generosity. He will be missed for a long time, good bye Micheal.