RIP Mark

5-16-11




I feel so very sad now.



Over the last couple years, I have seen fundraisers for a Manhattan Beach police officer with cancer. I have given money to some of them. But honestly, when I would read his name, nothing triggered. I assumed he was a younger cop, someone I would not know. I assumed he wasn’t a native and that he would pull through.



I was wrong on all counts.



Mark Vasquez was 36 years old. He was a Redondo Beach native. I looked at his picture today on the Daily Breeze article that announced that he had lost his fight with cancer, and I recognized his warm smile.



I knew this guy.



Mark went to Madison. I remember him clearly in my 5th grade class with Miss Wells. He was a class clown, with a huge heart. He did this super funny impersonation of a chicken, complete with a funny walk and everything. He was a good looking kid, too. Too bad I was clueless back then. He asked me out several times, and I turned him down, not even sure what “going out” meant.



When I read about his passing, I honestly got choked up. Of course, I get choked up at the tiny things, but this was different.



I hate myself for having not read about him more when I first heard. I didn’t get to tell him that I was routing for his survival. It made me so very sad that I didn’t show him that I had the class picture of him, and that I remembered him fondly.



I emailed his wife this morning with the picture, and she thanked me and said that just based on my description, she knew it was the same Mark, despite my hopes in the email that it couldn’t be because it would make me so sad. She told me his mom saw the picture too, and they were thankful for the happy memory.



So I sit here, knowing that it is what it is, and my mind starts going over other deaths. The first is a girl named Melinda Mitchell. She died my freshman year in high school. It may have even been sophomore year. Either way, when they announced her death, I didn’t know her. She was a couple years older, and for whatever reason, it didn’t occur to me then that she was someone I knew.



Once again, I was wrong.



She was on the soccer team at Costa. I didn’t know all the varsity players names yet, so I didn’t realize it until I saw her name. I was in shock. I had not really known anyone who had died before. I didn’t know her super well, but it was one of those reality moments that made me so freaked out.



In a strange coincidence, my dreams last night were actually about me going to a funeral with one of Ken’s old classmates who is sick. I don’t know who died, but it was this surreal dream in which I wanted to hug everyone.



I hurt right now. I hate that I didn’t know him better. I hate that I didn’t get in touch with him as I did so many other people from that time frame. I feel like I have missed out on an opportunity to perhaps have left him with some happy memory or anecdote.



I can’t explain my pain, since I didn’t know him like I did others. I hurt when I think of Mo’s son, Griffin. Every time I fold Bobby’s YugiOh pants, I think of Griffin, since it was his favorite. Mind you, I only know this from Mo’s journal, and this was from 6 years ago.



I get sad when I think of Jonathan, and the idea of him and Bobby being the best of friends now. Not that Stephanie and I knew each other when it happened, but I still feel this closeness to him, as if I must have.



Why do I gravitate towards this kind of sad story? Why do these tales crush me and drain my energy? I am glad I can feel this deeply about folks I barely know, but at the same time, I sometimes wish I would not hurt so badly.



Of course, my bigger wish is that these good people would not have died.



So rest in peace, Mark. I will look for the memorial service and hopefully be able to go if only to show your loved ones that you will be remembered, even by people who only knew you for a little while.