Early Sunday morning, I began my usual routine of meditation and prayer and suddenly realized, it was the birthday of a dear friend of mine, named Mark.  It would have been his 52^nd birthday on Sunday, but he died by suicide on January 15, 1988.

Mark and I were high school sweethearts in the tenth grade.  Mark played football and we walked home together after practice.  We lived only a short distance from each other.  We spent the Fall season of 1985 as two innocent kids.  We picked apples.  We talked on the phone.  We studied.  We baked.  We listened to Genesis.  I recall Mark’s favorite song was “Skwonk.”

The time Mark and I spent together encapsulated some of the most precious memories for me, of youth, discovery, curiosity, playfulness and care.  We were so young.

Mark ended our dating relationship abruptly just before Christmas of 1985.  I don’t exactly know what happened, but it was my first break up and it was hard.  I really cared about Mark and felt like more of myself when we were together.

Fast forward into 1986, then 1987, and soon I was hearing rumors that Mark had gotten involved with drugs.  He was running with a bad crowd.  By late 1987 he’d been arrested and spent some time in jail.  When he was released, he wandered the streets.  He sometimes waited for me by my car at the high school, he wasn’t attending classes at that point, but he’d show up in unexpected places.

I remember one incident where he was hovering around outside of my health class, he kept looking through that slim, vertical window directly at me, again and again.  The instructor was unaware.  But all the students saw.  Eventually, it was disruptive enough that the teacher stopped class and told Mark to leave, or go to the principal’s office.  He looked like an empty shell of his former young self, without his vibrant energy and strong physique.  He left the building.

There was another incident I recall, when I was home alone during my senior year in 1987.  I was getting out of the shower when I heard the back door bell ring at my parent’s house.  I bundled up into my robe and as I opened the door realized it was Mark.  He just kind of stared at me and said he missed me.  I felt a little scared, as I sometimes would when he would find me alone.  But he left soon after.  He never did anything to physically hurt me, it was more like a mental vulnerability.

Another time, I recall hearing the doorbell ring, and when I went out to answer there was a large bouquet of yellow roses with a card from him.  The message was too personal to share, but he was gone and just the flowers sat there waiting to be accepted.

The last time I saw Mark alive, was in January 1988.  Syracuse, NY in January can host some of the most hostile weather conditions you can imagine.  No, it wasn’t Vermont or anything, but below freezing wind chills and temperatures, along with blustery strong winds, and loads of snow dumping onto the city were just part of a regular Winter day for us.  

The last time I saw Mark alive, he was walking along the side of the road, and I don’t think he saw me.  He was wearing a grey hooded sweatshirt with the hood up over his head.  He must have been frozen walking with just a sweatshirt.  It was dark, gray, freezing and the snowflakes were coming down in clumps.

I would later regret not stopping and offering him a ride.  I didn’t feel safe with him.  But I couldn’t let myself off the hook for not trying to help this soul that I’d grown close to, in a unique way, for a very short time.

On Friday January 15, 1988 at about 4pm in the afternoon I received a phone call.  My friend on the other end of the line said boldly:  “Mark ____ killed himself today.”  I was newly 18 years old, and I recall the world turning upside down.  This was one of my earliest memories of tragic, brutal death.

I have always prayed for Mark’s Peace.  And, I have always wondered if I could have done something more to help him.  Mark’s death changed the course of my life, including my senior year.  I had no idea at that time, how large a role “death” in general, would play out in my life or how long my heart would hurt from Mark’s decision to end his life that freezing Friday in January.

Fast forward to Sunday, March 6, 2022 and I am still thinking about Mark.  His birthday never passes without me noticing.  Mark’s death was terrible.  It ripped my youthful heart open.  I’d lost another school friend in the Fall of 1986 to a brutal attack and murder, and I was still trying to buffer from that shocking and unthinkable situation.  And now I had suicide to add to my story.

I’m sharing it here, to illuminate the transcendent nature of grief.  I have written a lot about the deaths of our children, but unfortunately Alexis and Emanuel dying are only part of my grief story.  There have been many tragedies, and lots of grief.  But above it all, is the memory of each person that stays with us, whether we want it to or not.

When a death takes place, we get bombarded with messages that the end game is to “move on” and “get over” our losses.  But my experience, as I talk often about in the Healing Path Podcast, (found on Spotify, Apple, Google and anywhere you listen to podcasts) is that these are not end games that are based in reality.  There is no moving on.  There is only moving around.  We can only find a way to build a life around our painful places, we can’t fill them or shun them to the dark.  When we try, our pain demands its own attention, and expression.

Mark was a dear friend.  We were known to each other for a very short time.  It’s hard to imagine that someone I knew so long ago, after thirty something years has passed, would still be so present to me.

But resilience, is the nature of love and grief and humanity.  And this resilience, and ability to integrate all the parts of us is what life is all about.  Grief and loss are not unique experiences for us humans.  The losses themselves are idiosyncratic, but the effects of loss, are universal.

Next time someone suggests you “get over” your loss, or that you “move on” take a deep breath and throw your shoulders back.  You don’t have to teach them anything.  You just need to claim the grief path you are on, as your own.  And don’t be surprised when it’s the birthday of someone you loved three decades ago and the memories come flooding in.  We aren’t meant to forget.  We are meant to remember.