One question away...

Mark and I using 100% unadulterated skin cancer in a bottle, at least
 thats what we called it:)

I heard somewhere that everybody is two questions away from crying, this past year it has been one question for me.  Tomorrow my wife and I head to Hilo, HI with our friends Dale and Jonalyn Fincher (and Finn too) to remember and honor our friend Mark Rife.  I am feeling very nostalgic and sentimental.  The days seem quieter. I have always thought my sentimentalism as a handicap until a friend said it is a gift. It allows me to sit in moments a little longer than most.  I have a tendency to compare grief, that appears to be a more difficult but it wasn't until Jerry Sittser, in A Grace Disguised says "Loss is loss, whatever the circumstances. All losses are bad, only bad in different ways."  This past year has been the most internally painful of my life.  On October 26, 2010, my dad went to be with Jesus and August 25, 2011 one of my best friends took his life and is now in the arms of his Creator.

This is the email I received via FB from Mark.

 Funny how many times we are not trained to understand the breadth of a moment.   I am not going to explain Marks whole situation, my goal is to be transparent and clear about my struggle and thoughts that were encouraged by Mark.  I then went to Facebook and saw this.

I first met Mark on the Soccer field in Georgia my senior year in high school.  We became very close during my freshman year in college.  For many of you, you may remember Mark and I going around saying 'go gettum sauce' or 'smack it'.  People are still scratching their heads trying to figure us out.  We almost got kicked out of college together and we went on road trips that will forever be etched on my mind.  During our friendship I was able to see almost every side of Mark, his lows and his highs.  Mark and I instantly connected like brothers because of a sensed inclination for both of us to think with our hearts before our heads.  He probably would have been my best man in my wedding if I wasn't so close to my Dad.  He and Sauce (Tony Applegate) traveled to Rhode Island to share in my marriage to the most incredible woman I know. 

Over the past week or so a song has resonated very deeply with me.  U2 has a song called 'Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own' and it chronicles the struggles between Bono and his dad.  Because of the impact Mark's life and death has had on me.  I have become hyper-sensitized to the fact of how community/relationships moves and breathes.  Relationships are more important to some than others, but at the core of our being there was planted a need for it.  Over the next week or so, I plan to journal my thoughts concerning Mark and the fact that I will be engaged in how he lived life while in Hawaii.