Mark

December 2023, 2 months after Oliver died

Disclaimer: This is adapted from something I wrote around 2 months after Oliver died. I debated sharing it because the last thing I want to do is disrespect the memory of my dear friend, his incredible family, or the people we both love. I hope it is clear how much I loved him. And that the bitter emptiness I felt was a function of how deep I was in my loss, how little capacity I had for anything outside of that. If I want to be honest about my grief, I need to be honest that there is a nasty, spiteful side to it. That’s about me, not about “Mark”.

This past weekend, my friend Mark died in the stupidest way. The details don’t matter. He was doing something dumb, and there was an accident.

He left behind his amazing wife and two beautiful children.

Mark was a dear friend and colleague. He was brilliant, could not be bothered with things like “writing something down” or “filing an expense report”, perpetually frustrated by the world around him, hilarious in his excoriations of the idiots he was forced to abide. Everyone loved him, and everyone was sometimes a little annoyed by him.

All this week, I’ve spent much of every day talking with people about him. I’ve sat with F and T and D and S while they cried. I’ve talked with S and W and J and R and B and S and A and S and K and C and T and S and J and R.

I am patient with their grief. It is so raw for them. They are so sad, they miss him so much. His poor kids, his poor wife. It was a freak accident; it doesn’t make sense. How could something like this happen?

I am not surprised that this happened. I don’t need any more evidence that terrible things happen for no reason.

And I’m not sad. I can paint a compelling picture of the tragedy of his death. I can tell people who didn’t work with us that we deployed together, we were in the foxhole together, he was really special. I can tell people who didn’t know him about how brilliant and funny he was, how frustrated he would get with the people around him. How his blood pressure got so high that he had a stroke at 37 and spent a year of his life remembering how to walk and talk. How he changed after that – he got married and had kids and became kinder and gentler. How he volunteered at a rehab clinic working with young men recovering from catastrophic physical injury. How he never missed an opportunity to tell me how much our friendship meant to him.

I can shake my head with our mutual friends and say, it’s so tragic, he was the best, his poor kids.

But I don’t feel sad and I can’t cry. I – She Who Cries At Olive Garden Commercials – cannot find it in me to cry about the untimely death of a dear friend, a caring young father who was growing and had so much to offer.

There is a blank where my grief for Mark should be. What little sadness I have is dull and distant.

The only thing I feel in full force is anger. How could you of all people, you who had a second chance no one gets, be so cavalier about your life?

How could you take your healthy, beating heart for granted?

***

Now, I’m in Mark’s hometown for his funeral. Being numb makes it easier to go through all of these things. I am physically present, and I can even be Team Captain for the dozen or so coworkers who are here, making dinner reservations and ordering Ubers and setting meeting times.

Mark had an enormous community. There were hundreds of people at the visitation. The local police were out in full force, directing traffic and keeping people lined up. We waited in line for almost 3 hours to see him and his family.

I have managed to avoid open caskets my whole life, largely because that’s not a thing Jews do. They sounded so creepy and unnatural. I dreaded seeing Mark like that, and I worried that would be the moment I’d come to terms with his death and lose it in front of his devastated wife.

I had to resist the urge to laugh when I saw him. He was in a tuxedo with a purple paisley tie. He had a fresh haircut, and it seemed like they’d dyed his graying hair brown. His face was arranged into a kind of sleeping half-smile. His skin was aggressively skin-colored.

Is that what people think death looks like? Do people actually see this wax-looking dude and say, “Wow, death is real”?

Idiots. Death is pale and pasty and tinged with blue. Death is splotches of pink where blood has settled. Death is a mouth hanging open and limbs askew. Death is cold. Death is absence.

It’s so silly to think an open casket means bravely facing death. Like a Very Special Episode of Boy Meets World: Corey and his family spend 22 whole minutes going through the 5 stages of grief, wrapping it all up with a group hug and a gallon of Peaches and Cream concealer.

***

The priest said, “God called Mark from his life at a time when he was most ready to accept God’s love.” I had the urge to shout back at him, to demand an explanation for the death of my infant son. Had my Oliver, my 4 month old who was just on the verge of discovering that his hands were attached to his body, been so spiritually connected to Jesus Christ that he could no longer suffer his mortal coil? Really?

I watched my Catholic friends kneel and cross themselves and pray. I watched the others fumble at following along, shedding tears while the pallbearers moved the casket down the aisle. And I sat with some of the ugliest thoughts I can remember having.

Eventually I did cry, when the beats of Mark’s funeral brought me back to Oliver. Mark’s cousins made me think of my niece and nephew coming to me before the funeral looking so scared and sad. His pallbearers rolling his heavy casket made me remember how light Oliver’s casket was. His widow cried the way I have cried so much since Oliver was born.

I cried and thought of myself, not Mark or his family. J put an arm around me and she must have been thinking I was torn up about Mark. I could not care less about Mark.

Grief has made me an asshole.