II’m not very good with putting my memories of Michael into words, but I’ll try to give you a little glimpse of our young years together. Thought I would start with a funny story about him and the boys. As the only girl in our family I basically had to join in or I spent my time alone. One weekend the boys decided to make bike jumps out of bricks and planks of wood as they did quite often. I started off just watching as per usual. Then Michael suggested (very eagerly) to me to have a go. I said yeah why not as I had my own bike and was pretty much a tomboy. I did say, make sure you don’t make it too many bricks high. Well as I came racing down our long driveway I had the jump in my view realizing that the boys had stacked the bricks about 8-10 high, it was too late to stop as I was going too fast. I then hit  the jump flew over the handlebars landing awkwardly, my head just missing a brick, bike flipping through the air landing with an almighty crash! as I picked myself up from the ground the boys were snickering slightly, with Michael saying to me ,look jonnine, look what you did to your bike ,you've broken the frame. I was absolutely devastated, thinking mum and dad are going to kill me because the bike was fairly new. Michael then reassured me that he could fix it for me. I’ll just weld it back together he said, all of about 13 years old.  So he did fix my bike, and repainted it in a cacky green, so I was forever grateful, as it was my transport around the streets, needing it to follow the boys around Osborne Park collecting stickers, and other mischievous things.  At my wedding, the whole truth came out in the speeches about how Michael had been riding my bike, going over jumps basically thrashing my bike until he cracked the frame. That’s why he was so eager for me to go over the jump, so he could then blame me for it. We’ll obviously I fell for it, and spent 18years or so believing I broke my bike, and being grateful he fixed it! I couldn’t believe they kept that from me all those years!  We all spent our playtime quite dangerously many times, including Michael going through the backyard fence with me on the back of his motorbike, bike landing on me, exhaust burning my leg. All in the fun at figs speedway as we called our back yard. Many stories like these have been tossed around over the years, having many great laughs. The bike incident will always stick in my mind as I look back and think their weren’t many times Michael did anything too bad, as my kids say to me now, uncle Michael never ever told us off for anything, he didn’t raise his voice ever! Such a beautiful person!  Life brings such uncertainty. Just trying to have a few positive thoughts everyday, being grateful to wake up each morning is a struggle at times as Michaels death has left such a huge void in our hearts, and day to day lives. The memories more vivid now than ever before whether being sad, happy, or exciting. I would personally like to thank Darren Sutton for putting this website together and everyone’s beautiful words they have written, and all the support everyone has given the family.  Kindest regards jonnine