Mark

Moments after writing yesterday's blog I got a phone call. Relative of one of my employees (I only have two employees - we three have worked together for ten plus years) informed me that Mark, my employee, had just passed away - killed himself the day before. This morning I'm still reeling from that news, so much is swirling through my head.

I had just talked with him over the weekend. He was fresh out of the hospital - I was concerned. The day before Christmas I got a call from his step-sister that he had overdosed on his pain meds. He's had chronic back pain for the better part of the year. Of course, I was suspicious about the timing. Overdosing on Christmas Eve is suspicious - such a blue time for people who find themselves alone. I told the sister I would carve time from Christmas Day to visit him in the hospital and that was my plan. Wrapped his present. I'd also saved a homemade sticky pecan roll that I made that morning for him and when my own festivities were over I got in the car, intending to visit him. But first a detour to friends Carla and Allan (also brought them sticky buns). It was getting late and dark. I had a glass of wine with them and then lost my will to visit Mark. Rationalized that I wasn't even sure of visiting hours, didn't know if he was up to guests, etc. Told myself that I'd see him the next day. Next day, I called him and he answered. He assured me the overdose was a stupid accident - that he'd taken two pain pills waited a few hours with no abatement of the pain and then took a few more. He told me not to come but I suspect he was just sparing me the chore of a visit. Being selfish, I didn't go - let myself off the hook (hate hospitals). Then the whirlwind of activity between Christmas and New Year's with no word from him. Tried to reach him after New Year's - he didn't answer. I called the sister and she got word to him that I was looking to talk with him.

He called me this last weekend. We talked at length and he told me the whole saga: the accidental overdose, that he had also been diagnosed with pneumonia while he was in the hospital (he thought he was just fighting a bad cold) and then when he didn't respond to the antibiotics a discovery that he had a clot in his lungs. All was being managed - he was under good care he assured. He was to be on blood thinners for several months to break up the clot, he had a plan to manage the pain meds better and he also was determined to find a solution to the back pain. The next day I saw, with approval, that he was back in the trenches with clients (I get copied on all correspondence). To clients he sent cheery Happy New Year e-mails and he was getting up to speed on projects that had languished since before Christmas.

Then the call yesterday. "Mark is dead." Immediately I thought that the clot must have broken loose and gone to his heart or something. "How?" I asked. "It was a suicide," I was told. Immediately I felt responsible. I was the closest thing he had to a friend. I've been a mentor, ersatz mother, taskmaster, friend, drill sergeant and companion to him. We have been in each others' lives for a very long time. And when I say I've been all these things to him, there were long stretches when we didn't communicate much at all. I read the client correspondence and intervened as necessary but no social contact. In the past half year we haven't had that much face time. Used to be I'd have him over weekly for dinner or lunch and he would regale me with all the details of his life.

Things I'm thinking:

• I feel guilty. I know it's a normal reaction, the "what-ifs". But in my case, I really think I could have made a difference had I even an inkling of the pain he was in. I've been there - those depths of despair. I would have understood and been gentle but effective in getting him some help. I should have been closer to him in these last months - been suspicious that he wasn't reaching out for companionship - sensed that something might be wrong. Instead I marginalized him in my life - not intentionally, but I got busy with my own "living well". Had I visited him on Christmas or the day after, his armor might have cracked. It might have leaked out, how sad and lonely he was. I might have gotten a sense he was in big trouble.
• I believe he died of loneliness. A forty year old bachelor who failed to connect with people, he was an odd duck. In recent years he studied how to be a pick-up artist and for a time, he could be found in upscale bars with his pick-up friends, trying to get phone numbers from girls they deemed were "10's". He insisted he would never settle for a woman who was less than a "10". "How could I be happy with someone if I felt I had settled?"  "But Mark, you're not a ten - probably a 5 or 6! What makes you think a 10 would choose you?" And yet he insisted and year after year he endured rejection and found himself alone. He never even had a girlfriend.
• It's a wake up call for me. Each day I write my peace and love blog and flutter through my day trying to be OK myself and hoping the key to happiness is making a difference in other peoples' lives. And yet I'm picky-choosey. There are people in my sphere who are suffering that don't get my attention or care. It's kind of like when miserly old John D. Rockefeller who founded Standard Oil used to carry dimes in his pocket and give them to the poor people he encountered in his day. Guess it made him feel good but I can't think the dimes did much to assuage the pain of the people who were the recipients. Mark was suffering right under my nose. He was a daily reader of this blog. Thinking one of the last things he read, just hours before he killed himself, was my entry entitled "Proximity to Death". How surreal to think he read those words,

If you knew your life would end today - that you wouldn't live to see tomorrow, is there anything you might do differently? 

• Mark was a rugged individualist in so many ways. If he identified a problem he would go about fixing it. He overcame an addiction to alcohol - did it himself without a support group. One day he decided to give up drinking and he just did it. I was so proud and impressed. He read self help book after self book - always looking for the key to life: how to be more effective, manly, make friends and influence people, have the seven habits of successful people, etc. When the rest of us were reading for pleasure or watching TV, chances were Mark was listening to self help tapes, grasping at hope that one day he could be content, successful, have a family, be surrounded by friends.

I'm getting talked out here. Laid awake for hours last night - couldn't sleep thinking of him. I'll miss him a lot. Today I've got to assume the mantle of leadership and get my arms around his projects, notify his clients of his death and step into his shoes. Your challenge today is taking inventory of the people in your life. Do you know what's going on with them below the surface?  If they've changed, if you detect suffering can you take them to lunch and gently touch their wounds - get them to open up to you? I know it's a lot to take on and, in some cases, the overtures might be unwelcome but please don't find yourself in my position. I should have known. I could have gotten Kaveh to help him. I should have been a better friend.

Peace,

Sarah