The death of my friend, Mark 😥

It was little more than a week before the death of Mark that he came down to my office and we were chatting for an hour or maybe an hour and a half. About life and politics. Mostly just shooting the shit.

I had no idea that would be the last time we would be chatting. Mark swung my office usually once a week, I always enjoyed his perspective on things, as he always was an astute observer of politics and government. I don’t know how many hours we talked over the years but it probably was in the hundreds. That said, when I left the state for a while and then the pandemic hit it was a lot more distance between us two.

I knew he was quite sick and brittle, his declining health quietly and almost secretly taking away his life. At one level from his Facebook posts and our discussions I was fully aware of how sick he was at times – rushed off to the hospital for one painful surgery after another but he always seemed to snap back and seemed reasonably well off. But based on the amount of time he spent in the hospital I knew he wasn’t that well. But it just seemed impossible that one day he would be gone.

Maybe I should have gone to his wake but by the time it was announced I had already planned to head out of town. It always would have been fun to spend a night in the woods kicking back with him around a few beers and a fire but that wasn’t likely to happen as towards the end, he couldn’t be that far from emergency services. But I told myself he couldn’t be that sick and I just couldn’t imagine it that one day I would never see him again.