Last Monday, at about 5:15 am, my former student and friend Mark Hartburg died after a 15-month battle with leukemia. He was 20 years old.

Mark was a two-year member of both Ceili Club and Royal Fools. In addition to these ties, Mark was also a self-proclaimed computer geek who liked to build his own computers, so we talked shop pretty often. Mark invited me over for his graduation party and his birthday party, and I visited him several times in the hospital over the last two years.

Mark was remarkable in that he was always cheerful, at least in front of me and anyone else I have ever talked to. Mark was born with a spinal cord issue, spina bifida, which required him to have surgery on his spinal cord when he was two days old. That was supposed to clear it up, but the issue kept coming back, leading to several surgeries over the years, sores on his foot, a walking boot for a few months, confinement to a wheelchair for several months, and amputated toes, and finally, his leg was amputated just below the knee. Once his leg had been amputated, he had months of rehabilitation. A few months after his amputation surgery was healed, he started having chest pain, and so he went to the hospital, where they discovered a mass of very aggressive leukemia surrounding his heart.

Thus started 15 months of chemotherapy. After aggressive treatment, Mark was declared cancer-free last January. There was much joy all around, as it had been a long road. Mark started back at college, and started making plans for his future. Then, in late spring, the doctors discovered the cancer had come back in the brain and in the spinal column. Mark again faced aggressive chemotherapy, and continued to be upbeat. I received an e-mail in May that the doctors had nothing else they could do, and that Mark only had a few days to live. So, Mer and I went up to the Cleveland Clinic to see him, and we had a good visit for over an hour. Mark was tired, but very much himself, and we left being confused since he seemed in such good shape and spirits. It turned out that the doctors and family had not told Mark that he was going to die, and so he did not know. He also refused to die. He kept insisting on treatment, and he started getting better to the point where the doctors got him on a bone marrow transplant list. Then, the Monday before he died, Mark was told the cancer in his brain and spinal column were gone, and the bone marrow transplant was scheduled. All looked well. On the following Friday, some fluid started collecting on Mark’s lungs. The doctors were not too worried – they thought it was a fungal infection that could be taken care of. Saturday was his sister Kaity’s graduation party, although Mark could not  attend since he was in the hospital. Sunday, the results came back that the fluid in Mark’s lungs was full of leukemia, and there was nothing left that could be done except to try to help Mark have some decent comfort. Monday morning, Mark died. His parents told us that he opened his eyes and fixed them on his mother, who told him that it was okay to go. He looked around the room, and then looked out the window at the sunrise, and he died.

Mark will always be a model for me of patience and perseverance and real joy. If anyone had a “right” to be bitter, it was Mark. Mark’s dad told us that he asked Mark one day recently if Mark would change anything about his life. He expected Mark to talk about the wheelchair. Mark got fairly angry and said he would not change anything. He said his wheelchair had helped him meet people that he would not normally have met, and some of them were now his best friends.

Mark loved to make people laugh, and was a very game soul in Fools. He created a stir at one show when he was practicing doing wheelies in his wheelchair off stage. He loved to do wheelies and was pretty good at them, but on this occasion, he went over backwards, knocking over a large plant at the same time. He was fine, and the audience loved it. Mark also always seemed to be okay when we made his leg the topic of jokes when on stage. I hope it never came across as cruel, because Mark always laughed, so we brought it up fairly often in the group. Mark just loved to laugh.

It was remarkable that Mark joined Ceili Club with his leg problems, but he did fine. When he had to wear his protective boot, he just danced in that. Once he had to stay in his wheelchair, he wheeled around and sometimes through the dance floor, and often kept time by pounding a baseball bat on the floor of the room. After his amputation and after the fitting of the prosthetic, Marc started dancing with us again (and this was after he had graduated from CVCA).

Mark was very much full of life, and I am glad he was my friend. I am sure that Jesus greeted Mark and told him, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”