My heartfelt condolences to Betty and Charlie and the family.  Our thoughts and prayers are with you now.  Jerri Blackwell Seibert and Judge Canon

See you Home soon, Michael.


Warmest RS,  Tom D.

Michael, 

You were a good man, and from I can see a wonderful husband and great father and brother.  It has been an honor to know you all these years.  Your devotion to Sant Mat sincere and profound, and take off my hat to you for 40 plus years of meditation.  I am very sorry to know you have left this earth behind.

Please know you - and your entire family - are in my meditation and prayers.  May you be embraced by the heart of Radhasoami Dayal, and dance throughout eternity to the LightSong of Eternal Love.

Yours always in Nam,

Michael Turner

MIKE WAS A GREAT PERSON AND A HARD WORKER  , AND LOVED SPORTS FOR SURE .HE WILL BE GREATLY MISSED. EVERY TIME I WALK THROUGH GARDEN CENTER I WILL THINK OF YOU. HEY HOWS IT GOING ?  HEY EDGAR .WILL MISS YOU BUD.....

My thoughts are with my brother's family.  His memorial service was this morning, and I began writing this in Austin as the service began in Lufkin.  Becky and I needed to return a couple of days ago, but I’m glad that my Mom and my sister and her husband were able to travel to Lufkin to be with you all for the service. Damon, I'm glad you could come, and I'm sorry to have missed you by one day, since the only time I ever saw you was when Betty and I were two years old.  I still have memories of playing with you and your new electric train set at Christmas.  I was happy to learn that in recent years you had been in touch with our brother and with Wayne, and I'm envious of your career in parks and wildlife, as I, too, have a deep-seated love of nature and wilderness.

Even with the sadness of the past week, it was so good to visit Lufkin and see my nephews and sister-in-law over the past few days after years apart.  Wayne, you have raised a family of your own in Spain since we last saw you, and Mikey (I understand that’s how you call yourself now), you have served in Korea and elsewhere since we last saw you right after your return from Iraq.  Wayne, your character and kindness shine through, and in your manner I catch glimpses of my Dad, your grandfather, who you called your buddy (he had fondly recalled how in his later years you showed him around Spain).  Both you and Mikey have the shyness, humor, and reflective nature that are often hallmarks of the Martin men.  You’re good guys.  Your father was rightfully proud of you both.  Alicia, you and Mike had a bond like few others, but in Mikey you have a loving son to help you through these times.

Mike, my brother, a man of intelligence and quiet intensity, you had within you all the complexities of human nature.  Before you and your family settled 20 years ago in the woods of East Texas, home to our Dad and brother Larry, you had seen much in the world, and here are some of the stories and events as I remember them.  As a teenager, you learned chess from our Dad (soon beating him) and camped with him on the Gulf beaches of Texas.  At that time we both learned from Dad the spiritual meaning of the poems of Walt Whitman (to which he had been opened, if not by the book Cosmic Consciousness, then by his own recent flash of Enlightenment, which had immersed and overwhelmed him, however briefly, in what to him was a timeless ocean of Love and Light behind the facade we call life, an event which molded his thinking and attitude for the rest of his life).  When still a teenager, before Dad had discovered and introduced the family to Sant Mat, you entered a world within of beautiful mountainous scenery the first time Dad showed you how to meditate.  When the rest of us kids were in late elementary school in California, you showed us how to use your meteorology instruments, and told us the names of the major stars and constellations we could see through the smog and light pollution of Anaheim.  I foolishly persuaded you and Larry to wade with me deep into the rapids of Virginia’s James River when we visited you the summer before my senior year in high school, and as adults, we swam together in the bald cypress-lined Pedernales River in the Hill Country of central Texas.  At one point in your life, when you had returned to southern California and were working as a cabbie, you turned your gaze on an armed, would-be robber in your back seat who was demanding your cash, and he somehow saw something in you that made him stumble out of the cab, glancing back in fear as he ran away.  You mowed lawns in Hawaii and enjoyed its beaches, lived a simple life in a one-room dwelling outside the Dera in India, and lay seriously ill for days or weeks in your hut on the shores of Lake Atitlan when you lived in Guatemala.    You and your family drove through what appeared to be the downward-pointing beam of light from a UFO late one night in one of the most desolate stretches of desert highway in Mexico on the way to your in-laws, and as you tried to speed away, something electrical in your car went haywire as the UFO appeared to follow you for a while.  You loved your children, and were heartbroken when you lost your daughter Melissa, Mikey’s twin, shortly after she finished high school.  But through all your trials and triumphs, through your strengths and frailties of human emotion, I rarely saw you waiver in your beliefs.  Unlike so many, me included, you were steadfast and sincere in your convictions, which from your perspective were based not on faith, but on direct knowledge and experience.  You were as focused on matters of the spirit as anyone I've known.  Farewell, big brother.

Mikey and Family,
You are in our hearts at this difficult time.
Much love,

may the Good ones live for ever in our hearts

Viewing the photo gallery was very touching - seeing Michael so involved with members of his family.  My prayers are with Michael and the whole family during these challenging times.  

Peace to all of you.

Bob Russo, Murrieta, California

The pictures of Michael and his family are beautiful and there is a wonderful gentleness in each shot. We will miss you Michael!

Mike was a good friend and co-worker at Walmart, he taught me alot in the garden center.  Mike loved to talk about sports but loved football. God bless you Mike. I will miss you.

It is with a sad heart that I write my condolences here. Michael and I often had discussions and shared time together on our breaks at work. I pray God gives strength and comfort to all the family, friends, and loved ones in this difficult time and in days to come.  I know I will certainly miss his companionship.

OBITUARY

Michael Wayne Martin

2 November, 1943 – 12 August, 2010

Gipson Funeral Home & Garden of Memories Memorial Park

Show your support

Add a Memory

Share Obituary

Get Updates

Services