Michael William Cardell

Michael William Cardell 

July 19, 1949 – December 10, 2025

Nothing about Michael was rushed, careless, or halfway done. His philosophy was not the cliché “measure twice, cut once.” His was draw, plan, think, measure, (rethink), list, gather, measure again, and only then, finally, cut. His life was a practice of devotion disguised as method. He created an artistry of care behind every small detail.

Even the way he put on a shirt had a choreography: the fabric laid across his lap, tag to the right, front gathered just so, right arm in, head through, left arm after. The exact same entirely smooth motion every time, including the very last time he did it. He hummed through nearly every waking hour of his life. A constant, unconscious soundtrack of melodies. As his illness advanced and air became scarce, the humming faded, but not the music; it simply moved inward.

He was a worrier. But his worry was simply another form of love. His love language. Anyone who brought him a plan, an idea, or the seed of a difficult day received the same thing: a checklist, a thoughtful sequence of steps meant to carry them safely through. Sometimes this earned him an affectionate eye-roll. Almost always, he turned out to be right.

Michael was a private man, deep in ways that could astonish you. He softened instantly with his daughters, his girls, and carried deep in his heart his love of daughter Maelen, lost in 2012, for all the days of his life.

He loved widely and expressively. He left notebooks filled with songs, poems and musings. He crafted words into story. Most days that last year, he read them aloud to his beloved.

For thirty years he carried a torn scrap of paper in his wallet, folded again and again until the pencil left a permanent shadow. On it were three words written by Ede in December 1995: I love you. He kept it through the years they were together and the years they were apart. That was the measure of his devotion.

He was a Renaissance man in the truest sense: a songwriter, a painter, a metalworker, a sculptor, a builder of things. He held jobs ranging from drummer (in a band called The Monkey Men) to home construction to deep earth mining and foundry work.

He noticed small kindnesses. Even when the world went digital he always carried a few dollars in his wallet so the vet on the corner had something to eat. He listened in a way that opened people up. He carried a gentleness that never ever wavered. In his final days, even as breath became scarce and consciousness slipped in and out like tidewater, he remained who he had always been. Early in the morning he died, aware of Ede beside him, he asked whether the stray cats outside had been fed and whether there was gas in the Jeep. That was Michael: thinking of others, tending to the world, loving until the end.

He leaves behind those who adored him. His love is left swirling around his many dear friends, daughter Karly and John, grandson Roi, daughter Cheyenne and Andy, and his wife Ede, who was loved by him deeply and profoundly.

The road was not long enough, but oh, it was wide.