Well, after 71 years my dear brother Mark has passed on to the “next place.”

It happened yesterday, 28 April 2026. He passed away peacefully at home after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. Battles with that particular cancer usually do not last very long, but he had been offered an experimental treatment (don’t ask me to describe it), and this treatment did manage to fight the cancer pretty successful, almost to remission. However, the cancer was not defeated, and regrouping, it began growing again. At that point, it became clear that there was nothing more to be done, and with some relief, Mark and his wife Mary decided that it was time to let nature take its course.

In all this, he had a positive attitude, not blaming God or anything for what was happening to him, not crying out in fear or despair, but he simply fought the fight cheerfully. In my last visit with him back in February 2026 he was just as cheerful as he had always been throughout his life, though he knew that his time on earth was running short. Around that time he posted this on his Facebook page:

“As I sat on my bed looking out the marvelous window after a 2-hour nap while receiving my investigational cancer killing drug I was thinking about how I deal positively with my situation. I said to myself, I need to share this with you the reader. I love God and Jesus Christ and Mary, my wife who takes excellent care of me. Home life couldn’t be better living with my son and granddaughters. I love and thank each and every one of you for your prayers. I’ve passed so many dates where I should have died by now, so I know you’re prayers are working. I don’t take a day now simply, each day is special and I work to keep them special. So in closing, thank you so much! I love you all so very much, you are all in my prayers.”

Mark was a very accomplished man in many ways. But my overwhelming impression of him is that he could never do anything halfway. He was the living embodiment of “If a thing needs doing, it should be done well, or not at all.” He strove for completeness in everything he did. When we were young, our parents got me a guitar, and I learned to play it. I could play OK, and even took part in a couple of basement bands with school friends. When Mark saw me learning to play guitar, he had to do it, too. But it was MY guitar, and since he wasn’t going to get a guitar until a later date, he started learning on mine. Problem is, Mark was left-handed, and I am a righty. But no, not a problem, he just learned to play with a right-hand strung guitar! This means that he strummed/picked with his left hand, and worked the fretboard with his right. I don’t know how he did it, because the very idea of playing a guitar opposite-handed sounds impossible to me! But he did it.

We were neck-and-neck as far as skill level on the guitar is concerned, up until the time we went our respective ways in adulthood. But whereas I never advanced beyong basic picking and chording, he persevered. To me, he was astonishing! One thing he could play (and sing) very well was Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”! He could also play and sing practically every song in the Beatles’ catalog. I topped out with “Obla-Di Obla-Da,” which was the only Beatles tune I learned to play.

When he was 17 years old, with our father’s permission he joined the US Air Force and became a power production technician. This means he learned to operate and maintain electrical generation equipment. He managed to get stationed in three different countries overseas: Iceland; Greece; and Spain. He would have made it a full career with at least 20 years, but a bad reaction from a flu shot the Air Force required him to get caused an incurable chronic condition which required him to be retired medically. While the condition could have ended up killing him, no matter, he just learned to manage it.

After his USAF retirement they lived in Texas, and operated a keymaking shop for a time, but Mark was eventually hired as the Director of Public Works at some city whose name I have forgotten. He was successful enough at this that he was asked to work in the same position at the larger city of Canyon, Texas, where he worked for several years. While there, they fulfilled one of Mary’s dreams of operating a bed and breakfast establishment, when they bought a down-and-out bed-and-breakfast house in Canyon, Texas. It was in need of refurbishment, and they fixed it up and operated it for many years. At one point Southern Living Magazine listed their B&B as one of the ten best B&B’s in Texas. That B&B is still operating under different management: Hudspeth House (https://www.hudspethhouse.com/about).

Eventually, they decided to move to Oregon, Mary’s home state. So, after obtaining a job in Wood Village, Oregon, working for the city’s public works department, they sold their B&B and set up stakes in that city. While there, Mark ended up being elected to the Wood Village City Council, and also served for a number of years as a member of and then the chairman of the Port of Portland’s Citizen Noise Reduction Commission (pertaining mainly to Portland International Airport).

While living in Canyon, Texas, he and his wife Mary had bought several fixer-upper houses and fixed them for sale! He extended the skills he picked up fixing houses to their nearly final house in Wood Village, which they completely remodeled, turning it into a show home.

Mark was a certified electrician, a certified waste management engineer, and even learned how to fly an airplane. He was a welder, a metalworker, a carpenter, a plumber, and an artist in stained glass. He was a true friend to everyone, but his best accomplishment was being a husband and father.

He died in the sure knowledge that Jesus Christ was his Savior and Redeemer. Those of us left behind will miss his enthusiasm, love, and friendship, but we know he has gone on to a better place, free of the hardships that the cancer that took his life dealt to him. We also know that we will all eventually follow Mark to that place where he has gone; may we endure well to the end, as he has done.