Fundraiser recipient Michelle Hyman dies
Granite Shoals residents Michelle (left) and Charles Hyman with her mother, Linda Kramer, enjoy the outdoors, one of Michelle’s favorite activities. Courtesy photo
Granite Shoals resident Michelle Hyman, the subject of a local fire department and police department fundraiser to help pay for mounting cancer expenses, died Wednesday, Feb. 2, after a seven-year battle with the disease. She was 40 years old.
The Granite Shoals Police Officer’s Association and the Granite Shoals Fire/Rescue Auxiliary held a brisket sale to raise money on the family’s behalf. All 28 briskets sold and will be ready for pickup at 6 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 5, at the Granite Shoals Fire Department, 8410 RR 1431 West.
“I think it put her at ease,” said police Sgt. Chad Taliferro about the fundraiser. “The family was glad we were able to put this out there to get it done. That let (husband Charles Hyman) have the time to spend with her.”
The fundraiser was a relief for Michelle and her family.
“It’s definitely a blessing,” Charles Hyman said. “Without that, it would be insane. It’ll help a lot. Without their support, I think it would have been a lot harder for us to get through it.”
Charles and Michelle celebrated their second wedding anniversary Jan. 1 of this year. Neither was looking for love when they met on the job at Clearstream Wastewater Systems.
Michelle made the first move on a work trip to Buda to pick up a truck. She brought him his favorite lunch: a Red Bull energy drink and a Mr. Goodbar. While on that drive, Michelle drummed up the courage to make a confession.
“‘I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I really like you,’” Charles recalled her telling him. “I said, ‘It’s mutual here.’ We went on our first date to Taco Bell the next night. It’s what I could afford and what we both liked. We just went to talk and have dinner. It was love at first sight for both of us. She took the first step, and I’m glad she did.”
Charles admits he wasn’t sure he was correctly reading Michelle’s intent as she kept buying him lunch, so he asked his sister, Tanya Walker.
“You’re stupid,” Walker told him. “She likes you.”
“That’s kind of what I figured,” he said.
Charles called Michelle “every man’s dream” because of her many hobbies.
“She loved football, hiking, hunting, fishing, shooting guns,” he said. “She wanted to go everywhere, she made jewelry, she wanted to learn how to weld. She cooked. She didn’t like to, but when she did, it was good. She loved the Hill Country. She said, ‘I’m never going back. I love it here.’ She loved the hills and the beauty of nature, taking pictures.”
Charles said Michelle told him of her cancer battle early on, how it began with breast cancer and traveled to her bones, but he still pursued her.
“She was somebody I wanted to get to know better and wanted to help,” he said. “I grew to love her.”
In the hospital in December, she was told she wouldn’t be able to return to work and had only a little time left. Charles began a business, Hill Country Trailer Rental, that Michelle could run from their home because she didn’t want to stop working.
“All I wanted her to do was make jewelry and do what she loves,” he said, “but she was ready to go back to work. She never gave up, no matter how much she hurt.”
Born July 16, 1981, in Truckee, California, Michelle lived in different parts of Texas, including League City, Clear Lake, Friendswood, Nacogdoches, and Galveston, before finding her way to the Highland Lakes.
“She was very creative,” said her mother, Linda Kramer, who moved to Spicewood after her daughter settled in Granite Shoals in 2017. “She was very loving. She always wanted to help other people.”
Michelle is survived by her children, James and Jessica, and stepson Xavier; mother, Linda Kramer; niece Harley; aunt Wanda and husband Mark; uncles John and Paul and wife Marta; and numerous friends, including Jaton Liner of Sisters Helping Sisters.