I have long said that before I fell in love with journalism, I fell in love with journalists.

It started at my college newspaper at Eastern Illinois University, where I walked in as a freshman and asked for a writing assignment and immediately, happily, found a kind and merry band of misfits, pranksters, contrarians, question-askers, fact-finders and, eventually, lifelong friends.

One of them was Maggie Bieritz, one of those people who radiates joy and wit. We both moved around after college and stayed in touch mostly through social media, where I had the honor of watching her dote on her twin brother, Mike, her favorite person in the universe.

Maggie and Mike were the youngest of six children, and Mike was born with cerebral palsy. He lived at home until 2017 when their dad, widowed for 13 years, died on his 88th birthday. At that point, Mike went to live in a supportive living facility.

Photos of Mike — often in a Chicago Cubs hat and always with the world’s greatest smile — hanging with his sisters became some of my favorite posts. When Maggie moved back to the Chicago area from South Carolina last year, the photos became more frequent.

In June, Mike died at age 59 from aspiration pneumonia.

“We were very fortunate to have Mike as long as we did,” Jenn Bieritz Nilles, Maggie and Mike’s older sister, told me. “We had no idea what to expect, and for somebody with the challenges Mike had, he was a pretty healthy guy. For as crummy a hand as he was dealt, he was a pretty healthy guy.”

Still, and of course, 59 years weren’t nearly enough.

Jenn managed the bulk of Mike’s well-being, driving him to appointments, cheering on his favorite teams with him, facilitating his medical care. Even when they were kids, Jenn would get up a little earlier than everyone else so she could get Mike ready for his day before she got ready for hers.

“He was just the best brother in the world,” she said.

I called Jenn last week to talk about Mike because a few weeks after Mike died, Maggie sent a text to our group chat of college girlfriends. She and her sisters decided to have Mike’s corneas donated when he died, she told us. And they just got a call that a match, two actually, had been found.

Two people who had lost their sight will now see with Mike’s singular, soulful eyes.

I asked Maggie if I could tell that story. She deferred to Jenn, who kindly hopped on the phone with me.

“Mike was an amazing guy,” Jenn said. “Developmentally, when they would test him, they would say he’s at the level of a 3 year old. But I don’t know. They would give him these traditional tests and say ‘Pick out the fire hydrant,’ and he was probably thinking, ‘What kind of idiot are you that you need me to pick out the fire hydrant for you?’ You could just tell by his face.”

He loved sports — especially football, and especially the refs. His favorite referee was Ed Hochuli until he retired, at which point Mike switched his allegiance to Ed’s son, Shawn Hochuli.

He also loved Al Roker, which means Jenn can rattle off a whole bunch of facts about America’s favorite weatherman. Like the fact that he’s distant cousins with Lenny Kravitz and his full name is Albert Lincoln Roker Jr.

“Mike wanted descriptions of people,” she explained.

She saved different Al Roker reels from Instagram on her phone and when Mike was having a lousy day she would hand him her phone and let Al turn things around. Mike never wanted to be mad for long anyway.

“He would just crack you up,” she said. “And to make him laugh? His whole body shook. He was just the best.”

Shortly after Mike died, an organization reached out to Jenn asking if she’d consider donating his corneas — the only tissue that wasn’t damaged when his organs began to shut down, Jenn posits. At first she wasn’t sure. His death was already sudden and awful, and the call was jarring and unexpected.

“But then I chatted with my sisters and we agreed we wanted to do it,” she said. “Mike always saw joy in the world. And if he could bring vision to two people and help them feel that joy? How could I say no to that?”

A month later, she received a letter saying his tissue was suitable for a cornea transplant and two people’s vision had been restored, thanks to Mike’s eyes.

“I cried again,” she said. “I’d give anything to have him back, but that’s not the way it works this side of heaven. So this feels like a gift.”

So far, his sisters have chosen not to try to find out who the recipients are.

“My only hope,” Maggie texted me, “is that they can see the world with the same joy he did.”

As legacies go, that’s about as beautiful as it gets.

©2026 Tribune News Service. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.