I knew immediately that is was about our mutual friend, Mark, the guy I blogged about on his birthday in this post. At the time I wrote that post, I had no idea of what was shortly to come. Mark and I had kept in intermittent contact by passing messages back and forth, but I didn't have any reason to suspect something was really wrong, though I had wondered about his lack of status updates and pictures of his girlfriend. Now, suddenly, my stomach was sick with the sense that something terrible had happened.
I called Caleb, feeling breathless. We greeted each other soberly.
"It's bad, isn't it? What is it?" I asked, my voice wobbling.
"I'm so sorry, Eva," he said. "Mark passed away in his sleep two nights ago."
I started crying, though I tried to keep my voice steady enough to talk.
"What happened? Why did he die? Was he sick? Why didn't he say something?"
Caleb told me that Mark had found out near the end of 2012 (right around his birthday, and right around the time I started thinking about him and wrote that post) that his liver was failing. He ended up spending months in the hospital, nearly dying several times and losing a tremendous amount of weight. Though he had tried to get himself healthy and stay alive long enough to get a liver transplant, he had finally lost the battle.
"I was able to visit him several times in the hospital," Caleb told me. "We had some long talks. He didn't want me to tell anyone because he was worried that people would judge him, I guess."
That made me feel awful. Of course I wouldn't have judged him! Didn't he know that? But Mark was always concerned about how people viewed him, and it was just one of his personality quirks that I didn't question anymore.
I sniffled a bit and Caleb was kind and patient while he waited for me to compose myself.
"That jerk. You know, I never fought with anyone else more than I fought with him." I was crying and laughing at the same time.
"You were very special to him, Eva. He talked a lot about you. Someday, when you come back up to Minnesota, I'll make you a cup of tea and we'll talk about it."
Caleb ended the phone call quickly after that, knowing I was very emotional. I sat on my bed and cried for a while. Then I logged into my Facebook account and re-read the last few messages Mark and I had exchanged. Sadly, they were from over a year before he died.
Mark and I never dated. We were never a romantic couple, though we spent a lot of time with each other during the times we weren't fighting. He and I as a romantic couple wouldn't have made sense, and that wasn't how we felt about each other; as it was, we were each others' sounding boards on the people we dated, our jobs, our life decisions. We talked for hours, watched movies, ran errands together, and saw a lot of late-night episodes of Married, With Children. And that was perfect for both of us.
He never let me touch him, though. We weren't huggy or snuggly in any way, and at times he seemed to almost have some sort of phobia about me touching him. I remember one time when he was driving kind of quickly around a curvy road and the force of gravity made me lean to my left. "Get off me!" he said, laughing, and pushed be back upright with his arm. He was never mean about it, but it did puzzle me, as I was not a clingy person and was never trying to snuggle up to him.
Once, in one of his messages to me, when he was feeling a little sentimental, he wrote how I was and would always be his best friend. As part of my response (which was more light-hearted than serious), I responded, "You never let me touch you, though, except for that prom dance [when my then-boyfriend, who was a college sophomore, and who didn't want to go to prom, took me to the part of the evening where all the prom-goers parade past in their finery with their dates. Mark, who was at the prom with his girlfriend, asked my boyfriend and his girlfriend if it was okay, and then led me out to the dance floor so I could say I had danced at my senior prom. It meant a lot to me.] and when you hugged me good-bye the night before I left for my mission. I would have hugged you more."
During the week after Mark's death, I felt him near. Of course I was thinking about him, but I could actually feel his spirit visit me throughout the days. It wasn't at all spooky; in fact, it was a very natural sensation. I missed him, but I didn't feel that he was all that far away. The veil between mortality and the spirit world seemed very thin.
Then, the day before his funeral, which I wasn't able to attend, I was sitting in church waiting for the last meeting to start. I was sitting alone, and as my thoughts often had during the last seven days, they turned to Mark. Suddenly, he was there, right next to me. I couldn't see him, but I knew without a doubt that he was there. And he hugged me. I felt enveloped in his arms for a few seconds. I sat stock still, the tears chasing each other down my cheeks as I sensed that he was expressing his love to me and saying good-bye. He was going now to stay full-time with his family, his parents and his sister, and especially his two children, as they celebrated his life and mourned his death. Then I felt his presence leave. The next day, I distinctly felt the veil draw closed, and Mark stepped forever into the post-mortal realm. I checked the time and saw that his funeral had recently ended.
I had started a post about him months ago, but it's easier to edit yourself when the emotion isn't so strong. There are so many stories I could tell about Mark, but I'll pick one that has to do with this picture. Mark had won some sort of contest sometime after we graduated from high school. The main prize was a free cruise, and one of the additional prizes was a free portrait. He said he felt stupid having his portrait taken alone, so he asked me to come with him. The photographer, assuming we were a couple, tried to get Mark to put his hand on my shoulder. We both laughed, and the photographer settled on having Mark put both of his hands on his knee. I tell you that because of what happened a few months later, which is when the following incident occurred. I'm just going to quote the letter Mark sent me in September of 1991, when we were both turning 20 and I had started my second year of college in Utah while he was back in Minnesota (you'll recall that the internet was still sort of a twinkle in Al Gore's eye at this point, so it was either paper mail or phone calls back in the day).
"So now I am laughing at what she is saying, and I am trying to tell her with a straight face that we are just friends. Then she says, 'Look! You can't even keep a straight face!' I am trying to explain to her about my free cruise, and how I didn't want a picture of just me. Then I see Joel and I tell him to tell this dumb blonde who you are. Joel (WHO HAD ABOUT 492 BEERS IN HIM) says, 'I recognize her. That's the girl you got pregnant and then dumped.'
"AHHHHHH!
"So now this girl is having like 4893 cows and at the same time telling me what an ass I am and how I should be ashamed of myself. Needless to say, I slowly walked out of the dorm room with about 20 people looking at me. I found out the next day that Joel told everyone the truth and that the dumb blonde wished she wouldn't have been so mean because I was cute and charming. We have a date next Friday. Just kidding. I still have a boring life."
That's not the funniest letter Mark ever wrote to me. His letters usually had me laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. But it's a good story nevertheless, and it explains the "snuggle" picture and the consequences of carrying it around in his wallet to college dorm parties. I think he left the picture at home after that. It's the only picture I have of the two of us.
I have many memories of Mark, both good and bad, but they all add up to a sincere and deep friendship that grew as we grew and matured. As I said before, we fought a lot and could go weeks without speaking to each other, and there were times when I sincerely did not care if we ever spoke to each other again. He could be quite an idiot; but, well, so could I. And always, some little voice inside would tell me to soften my heart and get off my high horse, and eventually I would listen to it. Over the years, I saw him for who he really is, and I loved him for it in a way that goes beyond anything trivial and earthly. I believe he's found peace and happiness where he is now. He said to me once, "I love you. Very much. I am a better person because of you. Best prom dance ever? YOU."
Right back atcha, buddy.
No comments:
Post a Comment