Eulogy for a friend
“Hey, I’m Michael. But most people just call me Backstreet.”
Friendships always have origin stories. Some are worth telling. Many are not. Few are birthed from a fist fight.
Charleston Southern University’s freshmen class in the fall of 1999 was a big one. Was it the largest in school history at that point? I’m not sure. But some dorm rooms designed for two students were forced to hold three. The other side of my suite drew the short straw. Three dudes figuring out how to fit three beds and three desks in a 12 feet by 20 feet space.
What set off the fight between two of those three is a detail lost to history. What it did lead to was one freshman getting moved out and a new one moving in.
I’m not sure if it was the same night or the next morning. But the skinny dark-haired guy was moving his stuff in the other side of the suite. “Hey, I’m Michael. But most people just call me Backstreet.”
He said it with a wry smile, like he knew what I was thinking. Did he just say people call him Backstreet? As in Backstreet Boys?
It wasn’t a matter of hours before the posters went up on the wall. NSYNC. 98 Degrees. And yes, the Backstreet Boys. I couldn’t lie. I was glad at least this new guy was on the other side of the suite.
College is all about meeting new people. You encounter people from different towns, states, and even countries. You learn different cultures. You become educated on new perspectives. But you can never really know what to expect when you meet a guy who’s into boy bands.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t call another 18-year-old man Backstreet. And since we already had another Michael in our suite, this new guy was going to just be Mike. Or if I was on AOL Instant Messenger: Backstreet6MT.
Since hearing of Mike’s sudden passing last week, I’ve spent time thinking back to those college days as a freshman and then as a sophomore. Michael Turner might have been an enigma on the surface, but the truth is he was always unapologetically himself.
It goes without saying much of who Mike was centered around music. A trained pianist, Mike could also play guitar. Of course he could sing. That’s why he was at CSU to begin with.
But he wasn’t just about pop music. He loved all music. And it wasn’t just music. It was sports. It was basketball. It was East Carson.
Here’s another origin story. One involving a stolen street sign and a group of guys who like basketball. The sign says EAST CARSON ST. It hung in our dorm room. While coming up with a name for our intramural basketball team, someone suggested (probably Mike), “How about the East Carson Five?”
So that was our name. Mike, Michael, Johnny, Erik, and me. The East Carson Five. We eventually decided to drop the Five from the name and became simply East Carson.
Mike was a huge part in helping build out or roster. We even went as far as to send out personalized invites for guys to join and hung up promo flyers around campus for our games.
We weren’t any good. But none of that really mattered. We were having a blast. The joy of playing intramural basketball with your college roommates is unmatched.
So much of the college experience revolves around roommates. And the moments about Mike that always make me smile are the inside jokes. The laughs shared inside the quad 2 suite. It was hearing him and Erik recite the rap to “Forgot About Dre” a million times. It was the weekend he and I rented the Southpark movie and watched it multiple times, laughing at every irreverent joke and song ‘til our sides hurt. It was all of us writing our own raps and sharing them with each other. It was seeing how excited Mike got after waiting at Best Buy until midnight to get the new Backstreet Boys album.
We shared seasons of rituals. We’d gather in the back of the quads and smoke cigars. It seemed like a cool thing to do. We’d banter back and forth about music, movies, sports, and which pop star was more appealing between Britney and Christina. (Mike always had a thing for Mandy Moore.)
For a while all five of us would gather once a week a study the Bible, rotating who’d lead the study each week. It was always informal, but we each took it seriously as a time set aside for learning from God and each other. James 2:19 always stands out to me most from our time together: “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.” Knowing God existed was never a good measuring stick, and even as clueless freshmen, we got it. The depth of our faith matched the desires of our hearts.
Admittedly our hearts often strayed to other idols. Girls, money, success, parties, etc. But I always remember the faithfulness of those times studying God’s word. As frail as our faith was, we found our way back to the only Shepherd our souls needed.
It had been years since I’d spoken with Mike. Several months since we’d texted. Back in 2019 we finally caught up for the first time in forever. As old roommates and old friends, we skipped past the small talk and shared our hearts. We both told each other the absolute worst of our lives from the precious few years. We laughed. Because what else could we do? Life is hard. Sometimes it’s our fault, sometimes it isn’t. Being able to share that hard truth with someone is special.
A core memory I’ll never forget was the time when Mike went out with one of the most popular girls at CSU. Not only was he taking her on a date, he was going to profess his love through a song he’d written for her.
He came back to the suite that night feeling good. But it turned out the girl wasn’t feeling the same way. But Mike never seemed to regret it. “Shoot your shot”, as they say.
That was him. Call him Mike. Call him Michael. Call him Backstreet. Whatever you’d call him, he was always unapologetically himself.
Looking back now, it wasn’t so bad to come back to the dorm after a hard day of classes and hear “Bye, Bye, Bye” blaring from the next room over. It wasn’t so bad to hear Mike singing along to “All I Have To Give.”
And if you knew him for any length of time, you too might picture him whenever the radio plays a boy band song. Back then, he’d even burn you a CD of pop songs he loved. Or at least share a few via Napster.
All the memories from living with Mike those first few college years have flooded back over the past week. And with every memory I have this urge to text someone. To say “Remember when…?” But that person I want to text about it most is gone. And even as those memories full of vivid colors begin descending more and more into fuzzy grayness, I can always count on an old pop song to remind me.
Mike, thanks for being a great roommate, a great friend, and a great reminder to always be myself.
