January 20, 2001 ~ March 20, 2021 (age 20)
Michael Marcellin Smith (“Mikey”) – beloved son, brother, nephew, grandson, and friend – died on March 20, 2021. He was 20 years old.
Mikey entered the world full of curiosity, smiles and energy. From the time he could crawl, he was constantly in motion seeking to explore every inch of his world. His love of movement led him to gymnastics where he went to Nationals, parkour where he spent many hours at Apex, and snowboarding where he loved the terrain park at Copper. He loved being in the air, flipping his body with amazing ease and grace whether it was off a power trampoline catapulting himself 20 feet high, or off a cliff diving 50 feet into the water.
As talented as Mikey was at expressing creativity with his body, he was equally talented at expressing creativity with his mind. He loved reading from a very young age and his love of words and images evolved as he grew into a talented artist and poet.
Mikey was a free spirit with an infectious sense of adventure, encouraging family and friends to experience the world more fully by taking risks and trying new things. He loved the desert, spending 50 days in the Arizona walking over 200 miles while exploring his spirituality and seeking personal growth. He also loved road-tripping with his friends ending up at Area 52, Mexico and lots of places in between. The world was his playground, and it was possible to view the world with the eyes of a child full of curiosity and joy when you were on an adventure with Mikey.
His most special quality, however, was his ability to connect deeply with people. He was always reaching out to his friends and family to ask how they were doing and telling them to smile - or making them smile by being such a goofball. He was often a light in times of darkness even when he was going through his own struggles. The deep conversations he had with others about life, spirituality, personal struggles and dreams made lasting impressions.
While those of us who knew and loved Mikey saw all of these wonderful and unique qualities, Mikey was often not able to see them in himself. He struggled with depression and addiction. With resiliency and determination, he was able to overcome addiction but was not able to overcome the darkness of depression that extinguished his beautiful shining light.
He will be forever loved and remembered by his father Eric Smith (and fiancée Colleen Mcguinty), his mother Eva Smith, his sister Sarah Smith, his paternal grandmother Norma Stamm, his many uncles, aunts and cousins, and by his countless friends. He will be welcomed into the afterworld by his paternal grandfather Marcellin Smith, his maternal grandmother Sophia Burkat, his godmother/ aunt Kim McCabe, his uncle Craig Smith, and the friends that he has lost over the years.
Funeral services will be held at the Carroll Lewellen Funeral Home in Longmont, CO on March 26th and 27th. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to charities such as the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and those that support addiction recovery. Most of all, we encourage everyone whose life has been touched by Mikey to become a force for change in a society where we are losing far too many young lives to treatable afflictions related to mental illness and addiction.
