Mark was my best friend, so his loss is just devastating to me. We lived together for 3 years. The last year was after he'd moved to Surf, but he stayed with me virtually every day and, like a trooper, slept on my living room floor, because this still felt like home to him & he wanted to be close to the Ark. Mark looked forward to spending each day at the Ark for over 20 years, as he so loved his Ark friends and the Ark staff.
Mark first got sick when he was staying here with me. It hurt terribly for him to eat and he said then that he was afraid he had cancer and didn't want to die from it. I truly regret that I could not take care of him, due to my own disabilities, so he went to Surf, the hospital and nursing homes and, sadly, he was not able to return here ever again.
Today, I discovered a single poem dog eared in a book of Rilke poems which Mark gave to me for one of my birthdays. I don't recall ever seeing the dog ear or even reading that poem before, so I think Mark may have highlighted the poem before he left here. Knowing Mark's passion for poetry and how much he loved teaching the Poetry Class with Na'ama, I believe he may have wanted me to share the poem one day for him with those he loved. I thought of reading it at his funeral, but I've been very sick today and I don't know now if I'll be able to make it there tomorrow. I also don't know if I'd be able to have the composure to read it publicly right now, so I want to share it with you here:
"Death Experience"
(by Rainer Maria Rilke, from New Poems translated by Joseph Cadora)
We have no knowledge of this departure
so strange to us, no grounds for regard,
nor to show either love or hate toward
Death, whom a mask's mouthing gesture
of tragic grief so queerly creases.
Still the world is full of roles we must take on.
So long as we fret and try to please everyone,
Death also acts, though he never pleases.
Still a ray of reality lit the scene
upon your leaving this stage; from the crack
through which you left, a green of true green,
real sunshine, and real forest have come back.
We play on. Anxious over hard-learned lines,
declaiming and posturing now and then,
but your exit from existence resigns
those remaining to the distance; and when
sometimes overcome, our thoughts are captured
by a reality that sinks in and gives us pause,
so that for a little while at least, enraptured,
we play at life, yet never thinking of applause.
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G-d bless our wonderful friend Mark, who will be sorely missed by the many who loved him (& who I think deserves applause.)
And thank you to all of Mark's family and friends, who were so dear to him and took such good care of him when I couldn't.
Sincerely,
Heidi Weiman
Heidi Weiman
July 21, 2022
