A Mukilteo man’s dying wish will warm up some homeless folks

Time is short. Mukilteo’s Richard Meury has late-stage cancer.

Diagnosed with aggressive squamous-cell carcinoma in November, he is on hospice care at the Leon Sullivan Health Care Center in Seattle. He has developed tumors, including one on his neck that makes it hard to talk or swallow.

As morphine eases his pain, Meury, 65, wants to do something to lessen suffering for others. He has a dying wish — a thoughtful and generous one. Two friends who had been out of touch with him for years are working to make it happen.

“He told me his wish, that he could give homeless people thermal underwear,” said Karen Myers-Creswell, a former neighbor of Meury’s who now lives in Lake Stevens. She said Meury hopes that new thermals, bought with donations, will be delivered to the Everett Gospel Mission Men’s Shelter.

“He told me he had about $100. That will buy a few,” Myers-Creswell said Wednesday. She has reached out to her friends for donations, contacted the Everett shelter and shopped for deals on long underwear.

Meury won’t be able to go to the shelter to see the items donated in person, but he may be able to see it happen online via Skype.

“Here he is dying, and that’s what he wants. It just kind of touched me,” Myers-Creswell said. “But we have to do it as fast as possible.”

Before moving to Lake Stevens, she and her husband, Roger Creswell, lived in the Mukilteo condo complex where Meury lives with his wife, Leslie, and their grown son, Derrick. Myers-Creswell and Meury served together on their condo homeowners association board.

“He was friendly and neighborly. He was quite handy, helping around the condos,” Roger Creswell said.

Leslie Meury said her husband had worked for ABM, a janitorial company, and in hazardous waste cleanup. He once worked for a firm that did cleanup at Boeing’s huge Everett factory building. Before getting sick, he had been out of a job. “He never got to retire,” she said.

After not hearing from Meury for nearly five years, the Lake Stevens couple had a call several weeks ago from Leslie Meury. She told them her husband had cancer. From Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, Meury had been sent to the care center. Leslie Meury said Wednesday the Seattle facility was the only one that would accept her husband’s Part A Medicare. Meury’s brother-in-law is helping to sort out his benefits, she said.

Roger Creswell and his wife have visited him twice, and may return this weekend.

“It’s sad. I always liked him,” Myers-Creswell said. On their first visit, Meury let her know of his wish to give thermal underwear to homeless people. “He said ‘Maybe you could be the one to do something for me. It would be really important,’ ” she recalled.

Leslie Meury was a little surprised to hear of her husband’s wish. “He never told me he was doing it. He’s so sick himself, but he’s thinking of something he can leave for other people,” she said. She remembered him devoting time to Toys for Tots. And he has always helped out around the condo complex.

Married since 1980, Meury and his wife moved here from their native Pittsburgh. Leslie Meury said her husband is a quiet man who loves photography and the Seahawks.

“I took him a little Seahawks flag,” Roger Creswell said. A devoted Christian, Creswell said he has shared his faith with his dying friend.

Meury wants to share, too. In the time he has left, he hopes to warm others with a modest gift.

“He wants to see it happen,” Myers-Creswell said.

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; jmuhlstein@heraldnet.com.

How to help

Anyone interested in helping provide thermal underwear to people served by the Everett Gospel Mission may email Karen Myers-Creswell or Roger Creswell at: rogerbcreswell@yahoo.com