Month: February 2019

When I met Mark he was a roofer. He had graduated with a degree in biology and had figured out that the next thing he would need is a degree in chemistry. Back in those days, a well-paying job like roofing would cover the cost of tuition, books, and living expenses for a good part of the year, but lord knows it is a hard job. Mark would sling 50# bags of shingles over his shoulder and haul them up a ladder all day long. He would work day after day in the summer heat and on winter weekends in the bitter cold. He fell off roofs and broke bones, he had hot tar slip down his work boots and give him a second degree burn on the top of his foot, he had a gun pulled on him multiple times. You would be hard pressed to find anyone waxing poetic about the life of a roofer, but those roofing days would shape who Mark would be as an adult. The guy hustled, and when he became a college professor and could have taken things down a notch or two, he never did. I used to tell him that the crazy thing about his white collar job was that he could take a day off and get paid for it. He never did and when he died his last check had 720 hours of unused vacation and sick time paid out.

Last year his boss announced that he would be retiring and the med center said that they would promote someone within the department to take over as chair. Mark got along well with his boss, and like anyone working under something that appeared to be running like a well-oiled machine, there was some concern about it being a cohesive transition. As those kinds of work situations go, there were camps assembled and loyalties split over who would be best at the position. After months of things being up in the air, his female coworker got named as department chair. Mark long championed for more women in science, and so having a woman in a leadership position at the med center seemed like a good thing for everybody, but there would be no coined phrase of workplace drama if everyone agreed.

At the end of June there was a retirement dinner for his boss, and as was typical of us we came flying in at the end of happy hour and were the last people to arrive. There was a short program with some gifts for Gerry and well wishes for his more relaxed new lifestyle and an invitation was extended for anyone to share some thoughts or memories. I leaned over to Mark and asked him if he was going to say something. He said he was going to take a pass, but before things wound down he did stand up and say he’d like to say a few things.

I had never seen Mark teach or heard him publicly speak. He was handed off the microphone and started out by saying how much everybody loved Gerry – the staff did, the faculty, the students. “The reason,” Mark said, “is that Gerry checked in on everyone. He made a point to stop you and ask you how things were going, what was new with your research, and how you were. He did what mattered.” He would go on to say, “That is our challenge now as faculty. To uphold Gerry’s legacy, to be sure to take care of one another and the students, to move us all forward, to support each other and to move as one.” For a guy who had no intention of speaking and had not rehearsed anything I was amazed.

When we were dating, Mark would drive me around and show me the places he’d roofed. He would tell me the pitch, the kind of shingles they put on, whether or not they would have to go back years later to figure out a leak and repair it. “You know what I love about roofing,” he would say. “I did that. I can drive by it years from now and it will still be there. I made something.”

He made processes in science that would also stand. A colleague from Israel sent me a note that said if a technique was done in Mark’s lab there was never a question of its integrity in replicating it in his own lab. “If Mark did it,” he wrote, “you knew the science was impeccable.”

That night when Mark spoke to his colleagues it was to remind them that it didn’t matter who their preference was leading up to that night, that there was a new leader on that floor and she deserved the best from each of them, that she deserved fairness and loyalty. That it was important to check in with each other, that even though your life may be burdened it is essential to be aware that you aren’t the only one carrying hurt and disappointment.

Most of Mark’s legacy is on the roofs of homes and businesses in the Chicago metro area and in labs around the world, but the rest is mine to carry. Over dessert and coffee and socializing at a table at a restaurant in Union Station, neither one of us would know that the tsunami of grief that was about to come would flow from every direction, and though never meant for me it is the echo of his words that I return to over and over.

In the last few years, Mark had been doing a lot of traveling. He had bought a piece of equipment for his lab, that if rumors are to be believed, he was passionately in love with. He was so enamored with it that the company asked if he would be a reference for others who might be interested in purchasing it. He enthusiastically said yes, and what started as phone consults with would-be buyers turned into the company paying travel expenses for him to attend biotech conferences and give a talk centered around their product. After one of those meetings, Mark had dinner with the CFO who said that he was one of their best salesmen, racking up over a million dollars worth of sales directly attributed to him. This was a good professional marriage and even the company sales rep would come to his funeral, telling me that Mark hugged her every time she came to pay him a visit. “That was a first for me,” she told me at the back of the church. “Nobody ever hugs their sales rep.”

These meetings were in and out kind of deals. Fly in the night before, give a talk the following day, go out to dinner, and then fly home the next day. Mark always wanted me to go with him, but though my job is part-time and very flexible, it wasn’t so flexible that I could take a few days off every other month to hang out with him.

When Mark would come home and unpack, he’d cheerily announce, “Brought some more soap and shampoo,” and he’d scoop up his tiny bottles and bars from the bed and dump them in the bathroom cabinet. I would let out a deep sigh every time. “Why do you do that,” I’d ask him. “Soap isn’t even expensive.” “Because,” he’d say, “it’s my way of sticking it to The Man.” Mark had been on a decades long quest to stick it to The Man – that elusive, anonymous person who overcharged, underpaid, had his foot on the neck of our bank accounts, salaries, and 401K, the one who was relentlessly on our tail causing us to constantly hustle to stay one step ahead. I didn’t think pilfering tiny soaps and shampoo bottles from a hotel room was really sticking it to anyone but Mark thought differently. For him those dwarf-sized samples were a moral victory.

One day last year we were driving to Lowe’s and I announced that come thigh-high snow or polar vortexes that I would be going to Florida the following February. “Okay,” Mark said eyes straight ahead on the road. After a long silence he said, “So can I go?” “You can,” I said, “but you have to give up a full week of work. You can’t overschedule yourself so that it winds up only being four days. A full week commitment, got it?” He got it and we shook hands on the deal. The deal, of course, went to hell when he died but I did go to Florida last week with my daughter and her family, where two of my siblings have places in Fort Myers. I have traveled without Mark before but that was when I knew he’d be waiting at home when I’d get back. This trip was a different beast. I was doing okay when we got there and the sun and warm temps were wonderful, but when I walked into that hotel room and looked at that perfectly made bed for two, I cried until I finally fell asleep.

Little did I know that coming home five days later to this lifeless house would make that night seem like a cakewalk. At day’s end I went upstairs to unpack my suitcase which didn’t take much time since I hardly wore most of what I brought. When I was finished, I scooped up the tiny shampoo bottle and soaps off the bed and dumped them in the bathroom. Don’t you worry, Mark Fisher, I said to myself. The Man might have claimed you but I’ll be damned if he’s going to get your soap.

You, my dears, have been through hell and back since your dad died, yet here you are managing to show up – for your jobs, for grief therapy that feels like building a new house without any nails, for life that does not stop for the brokenhearted. I know that most days that feels monumental. Because I love you I am going to tell you that you don’t have to do it all. You can say no and you can say it without explanation. You can say thank you but not today. Flashbacks are a beast so you are allowed to watch tv for hours and not pay attention to a word of it. You can forget and be foggy and be mad. You can read the same page over and over in the same book that’s been next to your bed for months and that’s okay, too. You are allowed to give yourself a break, because for you and me, Dad dies every morning.

We have been through trauma, and because of that every single thing we thought we knew for sure has been upended. It is hard, it is unfair, it is shocking, it is our life these days. It makes us question why this happened to someone so passionate and fun and full of life. Because if this is possible with someone like him….

Dad lived all his days with meaning but maybe now isn’t the time for us to figure out our own purpose in life. We have paid our dues in love and loss and have entered the Club of the Fragile. It isn’t for the faint of heart, as you are finding out when your throat tightens and your eyes brim with tears so often. Now you are able to look at others and instantly recognize the ones who know loss. In the unspoken moments, you see that their eyes mirror yours in sadness. But you know what? I can still see that you have managed to stay kind, especially to each other with such love and concern that it stuns me. You have been especially kind to me, in ways that surely make your dad proud. When you were just wee babes, we would talk about that. That our hope was that you would grow up to have a tank full of kindness and empathy. In the thick of this grief that seems harder by the day, maybe that is purpose enough. To wake up and give and receive and call it good.

You know what I have always said when things go south? This too shall pass. So comforting to me so many times, but this won’t pass, kiddos. It will settle into your bones, and years from now when you think you are just fine, it will roar back to life when you least expect it. It can scare the living daylights out of you but you will be okay. We will be okay.

I try to think like Dad a lot these days. I ask myself all the time what he would want for us. So far I have no answer, but I do know that he would probably go outside and take a deep breath of this icy February air and pay attention to the birds. He knew that even when the harsh winds blew them out of their nest time after time, they could still fly. You will too. I promise.

xo