This page is dedicated
to Mitchell Thompson, A great friend and a great guy.
Mitchell was a C5 quadraplegic from a diving accident on August 11,
1986 or 87 (Please correct me if you have this info). He died from
an auto accident that happened on August 14th 1999.
I met Mitchell in October
of 1992 at a rehab in Mountainside NJ. I was 19 and extremely depressed
about my new spinal cord injury. The day I got there, Mitchell was
the first person I seen, he looked straight into my eyes and that
was the first time since my injury that I felt like everything was
gonna be ok.
Over the next few months
we became very close, even dated for awhile...we remained close friends
from then on. Many times he would comfort me and listen to me cry
for hours when I'd get depressed about anything or got sick. He even
suffered in my outrageously overheated or freezing cold room just
so he could be with me.
He made a sign for my room once that said
"Go to hell, it's 17 degrees cooler than this room".
Mitchell was generous,
loving, kind and loyal. All the things a truly great friend should
be. He used to always tell me
"If there was ever a cure for spinal cord injury, I would let
you go first, and if only one of us could take the cure, I would give
it to you".
He used to always say that we were exactly alike...he said that I was "him" with breasts..LOL!...I can only hope that I have touched people's lives as he has.
That was just one of the many thing he's said or done to touch
my heart.
His favorite group was Van Halen (the old VH), he loved guitar solos
in songs, I got him into electronics and he loved his tv and phone
with a million features and his stereo that he would blast till everyone
within a 5 mile radius complained! Which reminds me of a time we were
together listning to his stereo at rehab and a worker came and told
him it was too loud and he should put the volume on 5..little did
they know, the volume was only on 3 so being the wiseass he was, he
said "OOOOOKAY!" and then he turned it up! Let's just say
the woman came back and did not think it was as funny as him and I
did. hehe.
He liked talking about his life before injury, how many girls he's
been with, how good his body looked, his great fashion sense, his
job in the mall and especially his car. It was a galaxy. He said everyone
thought it was old and ugly but he loved it more than anything. If
he ever seen it on a movie or tv, he would call me up and make me
watch. He almost always wore polo shirts by Ralph Lauren, even his
glasses were polo (regular glasses not sunglasses), He loved snickers
bars but they made his skin break out, he worshiped the sun (we were
always in a contest to see who gets a darker tan), His favorite author
was JD Salinger but his favorite book was "The Little Prince"
and his favorite quote from that was "It's the effort that you
spend on your rose that makes your rose so special". He bought
me this book and bugged me till I read it. It was GREAT!
If you'd like to read it online, click this link:
The
Little Prince
and the list of what he likes goes on......
There's so much more
I can say about Mitchell but for now I'll stop. This page is just
one persons view of him, and it would be nice to hear from others
that knew him. I could not get any specific information about Mitchell's
death and I would really appreciate any help with that. If you have
any information, suggestions or ideas for this page, definitely let
me know.
Mitchell made me a wav
file and I finally figured out who sings it ;)
Now I'm jus wondering about the meaning...it's one of the last things he gave me.