This is a Picture of Our Friend Mark

This is a picture of our friend, Mark.  Well, actually it is one of the many pictures that our friend Mark took.   Because when I went looking for an actual photo of Mark after finding out he was gone, I couldn’t find one.  Instead I looked on my wall and in old Christmas cards and saw the photos he had taken of our family over the years.  Our little family unit.  And Mark, well, he was the guy behind the camera.  Which tells you a lot about our friend, Mark.

Mark's photo of our family, Christmas 2007

I haven’t blogged in quite some time – lots going on in our little family over the year.  Nothing I felt compelled to write about.  Life gets busy.  Life gets in the way.  But, this is a family blog, and Mark was family and for so many reasons it is important to me that there is a record of him here, where family is written about and treasured.  This is the picture I want to show you of our friend, Mark.

Because there isn’t really a public record of Mark.  He wasn’t on Facebook or Instagram.  There are very few photos of him that his friends have.  He didn’t blog and there wasn’t even some sort of cached record of any of the work he has done.   I’m not sure why this is so.  But it bothers me.  It bothers me a lot.  I don’t think there will be an obituary and only immediate family will be at his funeral.  And that will be it.   No one will have any public record of the beautiful, kind, gentle man that graced so many of our lives. 

He had drifted away from us.  Life gets busy.  Life gets in the way.  Lots of assumptions are made.  And then, all of us together find out he took his life three weeks ago – and none of us knew it because well, he had drifted away from us and  life got busy and in the way and lots of assumptions were made.  After a time of no communication with his parents, they came to town to realize what had happened, put the pieces together only to have their world come falling down around them.   We hardly slept last night with the hole that has been left and the overwhelming sense of sadness in realizing how lonely his final days were.  How intentional he was.  How much pain he had been in.

Mark and Dave met in an elevator at a law firm over a decade ago.  Mark was interning for the summer and Dave saw that Mark had a bag with the International Justice Mission logo on it because he had interned there as well.  It’s a ministry Dave loved and they struck up a conversation that day.  He found out Mark was finishing graduate school in the fall and was looking for a job and really didn’t have any place to go while he looked.

So we did what the Quans have done for years.  We added him to our family.  He moved in after graduation and started looking for a job.  He bartended to get by and lived in one of our guest bedrooms for about a year.  The day he moved in he showed up with a special gift for Nate – a McDonald’s Play Dough set.  Mark and Nate sat at our kitchen table and made Play Dough hamburgers and french fries for hours.  At one point, our 3-year-old threw his arms around Mark’s neck and declared that he was his ‘brother.’  And Nate couldn’t have had a better big brother.  Who else would have bought him Spider Man swim flippers for the bath tub?  We would all laugh until we cried watching Nate run around the house with nothing but those dang flippers on.

We had just talked about Mark the other day, wondered how he was doing.  Nate has started shaving and it took us back to our earliest memories of Nate.  Mark had given him a Bob the Builder shaving kit (with no razor of course).  It had shaving cream, a plastic shaver and one of those old-fashioned brushes you use to slather on the shaving cream.  Nate would climb up on his stool in front of the bathroom mirror and Mark would direct his shaving techniques.  When Nate finished, Mark taught him to put his hand on his cheek and say “smooth like butta.”  And so, as Nate entered the world of real shaving this past month, we’ve been jokingly using the term Mark taught him all those years ago.  And we wondered how he was doing and talked about giving him a call.  But life was busy and it got in the way and we made assumptions.

Mark was a man of integrity.  Character mattered.  Relationships mattered.  He loved his family fiercely - a protective big brother to his sister and a son who longed to care for his mother.  He was funny and witty and willing to live with the numerous Aggie jokes thrown at him as he lived in a Longhorn house.  He was never hurried when it came to being with Nate - happy to sit and talk about the things Nate loved or for his 10th birthday, head to the park with Dave and 8 boys to play a big game of football or gather a group of friends for a meal.  He loved us all so well.  Without any holding back.  Full out.  Genuinely.  Humbly.  I can still see his kind face and hear his chuckle and the greeting he gave Nate:  "Hey there buddy..."

The last time we saw Mark, he had come over to take one last picture for me.  I needed a ‘head shot’ as one of the local execs for the Final Four and I had an important presentation in front of a bunch of big wigs so they needed a pic for the program.  I had no time for trying to find some uppity-up photographer.  And so I called Mark.  And he came over and took a great pic, and we talked and laughed a bit and then he was gone.  And life got busy and in the way… and a few years of more assumptions.

We were close enough to Mark to know some of the sadness that lay beneath the surface of his quick smile and patient countenance.  Many of us struggle with some of the same things.  We loved that Mark had a deep relationship with Jesus and authentically wrestled with the ins and outs of living that out, owning that, knowing it, holding on to it.  In many ways I am certain he was still operating out of that when he made the decision to end his life.  That sounds odd, I know.  But if you knew Mark, you know what I am talking about.

I want to honor Mark’s desire to be somewhat anonymous and I want to honor his family during this time by not revealing his full name or the full details of his final days.   But I also don’t want there to be no public record of his life.  I want people to know that one of the most genuine, kind and loving people in the world is gone.  I want Nate to grow up to remember the ‘sibling’ that he had for a time.  I want people to know that a man who walked alongside so many – praying for them, encouraging them, pointing them to the One who makes all things new – is no longer with us.  His life mattered.  His passing matters.  And we will miss him and we are mourning him.

It is also a reminder to us that we can’t let those assumptions take over when relationship wanes.  When someone crosses our minds, it means something.  It means we should act.  My heart is aching over the deep, deep sadness that overtook our friend.  I pray, pray, pray that in those final moments he knew he was loved, that he knew he was heading towards Love.  I pray that as he stepped into a new reality that all that pain was replaced with immense and immeasurable joy.  That the memory of what was only served to show him the realness of the good and beautiful life that he is now enjoying.

When Mark joined our family, he also joined our church family.  And soon, many others’ lives orbited around his.  It was in the rich relationships he cultivated there that I think many of us made assumptions about where he was and how he was doing.  Some of us will be gathering some time soon, at a home somewhere, celebrating his life and his love and his home going.  We’ll say goodbye and remember and be grateful that there is still life together to look forward to.