Reflections on mark

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Mark was unlike anyone else. He and I were born just 11 months apart -- Irish twins -- and I have no memory of life without him. He was my best friend. We took our first cross-country hitchhiking trip together thirty years ago. Travelled across Europe and North Africa a year later. Have climbed mountains together in the Alps and Himalayas. Traversed China by train into Tibet in the last snows of spring. Owned a sailboat together called the Perseverance and sailed at every opportunity off the coast of Santa Barbara. His presence has never left me. The week after his death I stood on a bluff high above the harbor in the rain. As I looked out, a Great Blue Heron -- six-foot wingspan with white face and black plumes -- took flight from a grove of coastal gumtrees below and I felt a profound stirring inside me. Every week this year that heron has appeared at the dock beside the Perseverance. -MS

What do you remember?

Reflections on mark