Marina Gomberg: We’ve lost a giant in our community, but not because he died

This might feel a lot like a eulogy, but my friend Michael Westley is very much alive. He is also the only person I know who’s thrown, and willingly attended, his own funeral — he literally held his 40th birthday party in a funeral home.

It was unconventional, but remarkably smart (who wants to miss hearing all those loving tributes in the flesh?). The whole event was much like Michael: exceptional, brilliant and moving.

Away, that is. Michael is moving away — which is what inspired this column.

I don’t write about every friend leaving Utah for warmer, bigger, greener pastures, but Michael isn’t every friend. And he’s not just mine.

I inherited his friendship as a perk of partnering up with my wife (then girlfriend), Elenor, whose family has known and loved Michael much longer.

But it was in 2007, when Michael’s dad died of cancer — like Elenor’s mom — that I came to know Mr. Westley well.

Every Thursday for a year or so, we’d have him over for dinner and drinks. We mostly cooked, but we welcomed the times he’d come with a bag of ingredients, hip check us out of the way and bang around an unfamiliar kitchen (and then buy us a better knife for next time).

Sometimes we’d cry. Sometimes we’d dance (including the time he spun me into a large cactus and blamed my form for the accident). Sometimes we’d sit in whatever new old car Michael had recently purchased for his own enjoyment.

We’d always laugh, though.

And Michael’s laugh, much like his presence in this world and a good glass of wine, is full-bodied. He is bold. He is present. And he gives his whole complex self, even when he’s being a moderate pain in the ass (“Remember, ladies, to always burp your Ziplocks”).

But he doesn’t just give himself to his friendships. Nah, his influence has reached every corner of this state, including through this very paper, for which he worked for 14 years, a number of them as a reporter. He also served Utah’s LGBTQ community by planning the Utah Pride Festival for five years and did work to fight HIV/AIDS and bullying, not to mention his significance building Salt Lake City’s now lauded gay nightlife.

I’ll save the rest of his accomplishment details for his *actual* eulogy, but undoubtedly, Michael Westley has profoundly influenced more people than either he or I will ever know.

What I am sure of is how he has changed me, and how simultaneously happy and sad I am that he’s leaving.

I’m glad because Michael might have outgrown our salty metropolis, and I always want him to find places to thrive. But I’m sad in the way where I want to wrap myself around his leg and make him drag me if he’s going to go.

It’s just that people as fiercely loyal and richly timeless don’t come along that often. And maybe even fewer who are as generous.

It struck me the other night as Michael was on his hands and knees in our living room arranging the cars he was gifting our son, Harvey, in a fashion that would have made a ZCMI window display jealous, what kind of giver he is.

First of all there were no fewer than 75 vehicles ranging from Hot Wheels to Tonka Trucks and “Cars” cars that he let us rip open and play with before mentioning they were collectors’ editions. They had been gifts from Michael’s dad that he had kept in pristine condition, until ...

It reminded me of how he helped Elenor get her job at The Salt Lake Tribune as a newsroom assistant in the early 2000s. And how much he taught me while we worked together at the Utah Pride Center. And how when I was to give a toast at my sister’s wedding, he instructed me on how to weave an impactful narrative (if he hasn’t already teared up, I’ve done him an injustice).

He gives without reservation. He gives without expectation of reciprocity. And he gives of the good stuff.

He called me the other day on his way across the country to let me know he had choked on a piece of chicken and then puked on himself in parking lot of an EZ Go. He even gives of his humility.

But no chicken nor distance can erase this giant. So, while he isn’t here, he’s certainly not gone.

Safe travels, friend, and cheers to your new adventure.

Marina Gomberg is a communications professional and lives in Salt Lake City with her wife, Elenor Gomberg, and their son, Harvey. You can reach Marina at mgomberg@sltrib.com.