Courage

Attention: this is difficult to read. If you knew Mark, it might be too much for you. If you have experience with bipolar in your circle, or suicide, it might also be.

A paradox, and an unanswerable question

Hebrews 13:7 Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you, and considering the result of their conduct (the end of their life), imitate their faith.

Oof.

A number of friends have said, and a number of authors have written, that a suicide’s final act does not define their life. I understand what they mean. But somehow the end is tied up with the rest.

Mark was one of the most courageous people I know.

Suicide is considered an act of cowards.

Mark had battled many things in our 26 years together, mainly internal, mental, emotional. He fought against his own tendencies toward comfort and ease. He acted for the good of his community in spite of his own fears or temptations. He followed the recommendations and requests of his leaders when he longed to go a different direction. He made less of himself so that others could be made more of. So many times I was in awe of his ability to take the right action when I knew how torn he was by his own emotions. He was more able to make the right decision than anyone I knew.

So how could he not make the right decision, why did he take the easy way out, at the most significant point of his life? I have heard that reaction from some of Mark’s and my closest friends, and I felt it in the first months.

In the mix of all the emotions I felt right after Mark’s death - the relief, the abandonment, the grief - I was angry that he (I assumed) had acted to escape what seemed to him an impossible situation: he needed to take care of his family, and he was not able to because he felt incompetent in every area of his life. In reality, he was descending into mental illness and was becoming desperate. He felt that he had to get better immediately and saw that it wasn’t going to happen; not only would he not be able to provide for us, he would be a burden on us.

He also saw the impending future of a life on medication. His reaction to the illness of bipolar disorder made complete sense with who Mark was. When his doctor told him in his thirties that he had borderline high blood pressure and should start taking medication, Mark convinced him that he could manage it by running and monitoring (which he did). He had a moderate phobia of medical care; his blood pressure spiked when he went to see a doctor for whatever reason. He absolutely could not accept a world in which he was monitored by an expert and put on a medication that did things to his body he could not control.

One explanation of his final decision is that he was not himself because of the severity of his depression. He was not. His anxieties had entwined themselves into his mind to the point that they wiped away his credo of the “already but not yet,” the reality that God’s kingdom has come, but all is not as it will be in the end. He had preached that and lived it his whole life, but it disappeared into the fog of his battlefield.

In other ways, he was still very much himself. At Mark’s service (I still can’t say funeral), his father, yet again, told the story of Mark being spanked on his 4^th birthday – twice. He painted the chrome on the car to match the paint. He was spanked for it, his father cleaned off the paint…and Mark re-painted it. He was convinced it should match. Larry commented that Mark was known for getting things done that he thought should be done. He was. If he was convinced something should be, then it was going to be.

He had been mulling over suicide for at least a month. He made major decisions that way his whole life – thought about them almost subconsciously, let them rumble around, until one day the decision was made, and that was that. New cars, job changes, babies…I can think of a number of things that suddenly happened but in reality hadn’t been so sudden.

Without his foundational reality that God’s ability is far beyond our imaginations, he sized up the situation and believed we would be better off without him. He was providing for us in the only way he felt he could.

In his mind, bereft of God as it felt, this was the right decision.

He fought so hard. He fought as hard as he could to make this illness just go away. He tried blaming it on himself, convincing himself that his own shame and weakness were the core. He sat in his big blue recliner every day, going over and over the past, present and future in his head, trying to make the mental anguish not real, but it wouldn’t go away.

I’m not sure Mark had ever faced something he just couldn’t solve. When we ran into any kind of seemingly insurmountable puzzle or difficulty – from untying a knot to leading a church through a field of landmines – he worked at it and worked at it, patiently (or urgently) came at it from all different directions, and never gave up. He always could fix it. He was finally in a catastrophe that he just could not work through, not without great cost and trauma for himself and his family.

When he realized that it was there to stay, he reluctantly kept himself alive day after day for us, because I told him every day that we wanted him. He didn’t really believe we needed him, because he wasn’t practically (financially) useful and because he felt that he was a failure in his emotional stability for us. But he heard me and knew that at least I believed it. So he stayed, day by day, until he couldn’t take my word for it anymore.

Every day that he stayed with us was one that he battled through for us, with all the strength and bravery he had ever shown. I know he also battled with his fears the day he died, that he did not have the physical courage to do what he felt he needed to. The torment of living finally outweighed the fear of dying.

In Mark’s preaching, he often pointed to the necessity of having to live with paradox. Already, but not yet. God is Lion, God is Lamb. It was escape, and it was sacrifice. And he was still courageous, until the day he was bound and overwhelmed, one of the most courageous I have known.