When asked to describe former Ball State student Mike Cook, his girlfriend said, “He was an asshole.”
Dixie Hucke, a senior fashion major, went on to explain that her boyfriend had a strong personality and was an asshole in a way that could make his friends laugh.
“He wasn’t a dick,” Hucke said. “He would say what was on his mind and he would say it rather bluntly.”
Cook passed away from leukemia Oct. 22, after being diagnosed two years ago in 2012.
Hucke said Cook had a positive influence on everyone he touched, especially his friends. His friends were important to him, Hucke said, and he didn’t let anything – even his cancer – get in the way of encouraging them to reach their goals.
“He was always positive, he was a joy to be around,” Hucke said. “He was one of the few people that could lift you up and push you to your dreams without being overbearing about it.”
Hucke said there was one time when she had a bad day and she told Cook about it, he told her to come over after class.
He greeted her at the door with a glass of wine and told her to sit down on the couch.
“So I sat down, and he started playing Beauty and the Beast, which is my all time favorite Disney movie,” Hucke said. “And everything was ok after that. It was just a glass of wine and a Disney movie, but it completely turned the world around for me.”
Cook had to drop out of school after the fall semester two years ago when he was a senior, and he spent six months in Indianapolis for chemotherapy. When he finished the chemotherapy, his immune system was too weak to come back to school.
But he still came back to visit his friends. Cook was a part of the Society for Earth Based Religion, something Hucke said was very important to him. He would come back and join in on meetings and offer his input into things they were talking about.
Matthew Dittman, one of Cook’s friends and a senior biology major, met Cook his freshman year of college at the Society for Earth Based Religions. Dittman had just come to Ball State and didn’t know many people.
“We went [to Teppanyaki] as a group to hang out, and I was lamenting the fact that I didn’t have any friends,” Dittman said. “I was talking about that, how I didn’t have any friends, and he said, 'Thanks asshole.' That made me feel pretty good.”
But it was not only his friends Cook encouraged. As an aspiring social work major, all he wanted to do was help people.
Dittman said Cook was always making sure his friends were alright, and that it was something very important to him.
“When I was a freshman, my roommate, who was also a friend of Mike’s, he was going through some issues,” Dittman said. “I was talking to Mike about it and he arranged to come over a couple times and talk to him about it and see if he could get him through it.”
Hucke said this wasn’t something that was out of the ordinary for Cook. She said his friends were the most important thing in his life.
“If he could spent time with friends, he would,” Hucke said. “His friends were the biggest part of his life. They were his family.”
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