I got the news when I arrived at the airport. He passed before midnight on 6/17/25, a light extinguished, a life cut short. My voice trembled, betraying me, as I read the message from his mother aloud to my sister, and my eyes welled with tears that quickly spilled over.
We were getting ready to get on a plane, my sister and nephew’s first experience flying, I couldn’t afford to be a trainwreck.
I quickly called Joe, apologizing for calling him at work but explaining that I wasn’t going to send this via text. I reported the news to him, and there was a silence as he tried to process what I was telling him, trying to access his grief that has been ever elusive through this entire journey. He voice faltered only for a moment as he told me he would inform his mother after work.
After we hung up, I rapidly fired off a handful of text messages to a few people who needed to know, and gathered my things to head into the airport. We made it through security and eventually to our gate where I had a few minutes to send out some more text messages and make the decision NOT to tell my mother until after I return home. Every time I share news with her about Mark’s worsening condition she seems to have a health issue, and with my husband being back to work, me heading 4 hours North and my daughter being across the state, my mother would be alone for the most part. If she had a medical emergency, there would no one to come help her or open the door for EMS. She used to call him “Sir Marcus Anthony” when we were kids.
We made it to our destination, me thoroughly distracted by keeping my nephew busy while my sister handled her anxiety about the flight. Never really getting the chance to unpack the news or the devastation of it.
I gazed at the lake, made food and conversation, never really accessing my grief. I’m not really sure what I expected, I’ve been processing this for weeks.
I calculated the time that passed between when they gave him an expiration date and when he expired. Friday would have been 4 weeks. In terms of cancer and death, that was wildly accurate. Though from what information I’ve been given, if they hadn’t removed the portion of his skull with the last surgery he probably wouldn’t have lasted as long as he did. The swelling had been intense, I can only imagine how much pressure was being put on his poor brain even with the piece of his skull missing.
Messages trickled in throughout the day, messages of concern, sympathy, requests for future information, but I respond to them like a robot going through the motions. Nothing seemed real. There is a hollow space in my chest that hurts. Its a hot, hungry pain aching and itching behind my right breast and bursting out through my back but its dull and I ignore it.
The sky drenched the earth with its tears for most of the day and all through the night leaving the atmosphere cold and gloomy the next morning. It feels like the sky is expressing my grief while I’m unable to. I’m screaming on the inside, part of me wanting to just let myself spiral into that dark place that I know so well. But I can’t, I’m needed, I have to function. This is what it means to be the dependable one that people have come to count on.
His family seems to be imploding, his mother is up in arms over her family being “more concerned over Scott’s feelings” than hers. When I had dinner with her a few weeks ago, I asked for clarification about who Scott was because it was a name I wasn’t familiar with. She danced around the subject of Scott being a concerned friend, but a concerned friend doesn’t sign up to be by someone’s side as they die unless there is something deeper.
Mark was open about the fact that he was immersed in a community of gay men shortly after moving to Florida in 2006, but we never had a conversation about him. We never had any conversation revealing his preferences, but just like with my daughter, I have had my intuition for a LONG time. My theory is that Scott is actually Mark’s partner and Scott possibly opened up to Mark’s siblings about their relationship. He may have even tried to open up to Mark’s mom about it and part of her hostility toward Scott is the manifesting of her either not accepting or not understanding what he told her. This is all theory though. I don’t have the phone number for either of his siblings to inquire.
His mom sent me copies of text messages from her daughter as her explanation of how they were shunning her feelings in favor of Scott’s, but even after reading the messages, and re-reading them, and re-reading them aloud for my sister and cousin… I still don’t see where they are disrespecting her in any way. But I haven’t found a respectful way to tell her that.
She sent me the link to the funeral home obituary and memory book. He’s being cremated in Florida and his friends are having a celebration of life to honor him in Florida, then his cremains will be brought back to Michigan where he will be laid to rest with military honors.
This isn’t the end of my story, but sadly it is the end of his. Cheers my brother, to a life well lived, even if it was cut short.
If it will add anything to the context, I will update this with a recounting of his ceremony. I’ve never beheld a funeral like this. I’m sure it will be very emotional.
