Requiescat in Pace, Mark Wilden

I had two close friends who made my childhood bearable.  One was Mark Wilden.  The other broke the news that Mark may have died recently.  Sadly, Mark, a most stubborn individual, had terminated our correspondence very abruptly a few years ago after we had a political disagreement.  Politics, for God's sake!  How can that ever be as REAL as friendship?

For Mark, things were black and white for the most part.  He had to provoke life into certainty whenever possible.

When we last corresponded, I wrote of my own struggle with severe, chronic pain and physical disability that was fast narrowing my existence.  At that point, he was sympathetic but had not begun his own struggle.  Today I discovered that he battled with cancer for quite a long time.  He appears to have done so with the quirky sense of humour that he always possessed.   He did not lack for courage.

Mark Wilden was one of the most brilliant and eccentric individuals I have known.  The description of 'an incisive mind' personified Mark's intellect.

For those who did not know Mark personally, his own words provide a little clue as to his personality:

'I seem to have a talent for wanting to do obviously desirable things that are either not implemented at all or explained badly.'

I met him for the first time in Mr. Hollenbach's classroom at La Jolla Elementary School. Both he and I had returned one summer to that classroom to visit our favourite teacher.   We connected instantly.  He was one of the most beautiful boys I ever saw and one of the most fascinating intellectually.  Although he was in my sister's class and not mine, we were almost the same age because of the grades I had skipped.  It was one of the reasons he and Don saved me from utter alienation, because the students in my own grade were so much older than I and my mother never allowed me to participate in their social events or 'rites of passage'.  With the Motley Crew, the acting company and circle of friends that consisted mainly of a few members of the 'gifted students' in my sister's grade, I was able to enjoy being a child.  Even then, Mark had a propensity for mischief and the ability to be infuriating but our friendship was beyond price.

He embraced my fantasies wholeheartedly.  We used to leave notes to one another in ciphers we invented in Butler's Lives of the Saints at the La Jolla Library.  That cloak-and-dagger stuff as well as the business of writing in code appealed to us both.  We prowled the streets of sleepy La Jolla with our fencing sabres, wearing makeshift capes, seeking worthy quests.  When one day, to our immense surprise and delight, we encountered a grown man wearing a cloak, we knelt before him, crying out in Latin our willingness to follow him in performing acts of chivalry to right all wrongs in the contemporary world.  The poor guy didn't know how to respond!  One saw a great deal of pseudo-medieval fashion among the 'flower children' in those days.    He did respond with a good grace, to his credit, actually, and I think was quite amused, although he did not mock us at all.

I confess I was surprised when Mark became a Roman Catholic very briefly, declaring it was for my sake, although I never would have asked that of him.  My own religion is fairly multi-faceted, embracing pagan beliefs along with those of the Roman Catholic faith.  Like Oscar Wilde, I find the trappings irresistable and it is the grandeur of the great Cathedrals, the scent of incense and the acknowledgement of a Goddess in the form of the Blessed Virgin that keep me at Mass..   Not as surprised when Mark threw out the baby with the bathwater, after demanding scientific proof of every verse and tenet that could not be had.  I do not think he ever accepted the concept of Faith, nor could he accept the difference between religion based upon universal myth and one based on literalism.  He had to be a fundamentalist or reject it completely.  I hope he has been proven wrong though and that there is existence after this one, even if it is not what any of us ever have envisioned!  I would hate to think of Mark Wilden being no more.

Selfishly perhaps, I regret the break in communication during the past few years.  I have lost far too many close and dear friends but most were older than I and older than Mark.  Their deaths, while still a terrible shock and blow in many cases, could have been foreseen.  Not so with Mark.  It grieves me most, however, to discover how long he suffered.  Death is one thing.  I think often, in my own narrow circle of pain, of Swinburne's declaration: 'For there is no God found stronger than Death and Death is a Sleep.'  Slumber is so often denied to those of us who suffer chronic severe pain and therefore, sometimes Death appears to be a promise of ultimate Salvation in the form of Peace.  It is the thought of Mark's suffering that hurts me even more than the thought of his Death.

From a distance, I only have been able to see that his wife was a source of great strength during this, a true helpmeet.  

All considerations of religion aside, I do know that Death never should be perceived as a punishment nor is life any sort of reward for merit.  Mark did not deserve his death nor do those who loved him or indeed the Earth itself deserve his loss.  May he rest in peace, after his long struggle with pain.

Swinburne, my favourite poet once wrote a dialogue with Death:

DEATH, if thou wilt, fain would I plead with thee:
Canst thou not spare, of all our hopes have built,
One shelter where our spirits fain would be,
Death, if thou wit?

No dome with suns and dews impearled and gilt,
Imperial: but some roof of wildwood tree,
Too mean for sceptre's heft or swordblade's hilt.

Some low sweet roof where love might live, set free
From change and fear and dreams of grief or guilt;
Canst thou not leave life even thus much to see,
Death, if thou wilt?

II
Man, what art thou to speak and plead with me?
What knowest thou of my workings, where and how
What things I fashion? Nay, behold and see,
Man, what art thou?

Thy fruits of life, and blossoms of thy bough,
What are they but my seedlings? Earth and sea
Bear nought but when I breathe on it must bow.

Bow thou too down before me: though thou be
Great, all the pride shall fade from off thy brow,
When Time and strong Oblivion ask of thee,
Man, what art thou ?

III
Death, if thou be or be not, as was said,
Immortal; if thou make us nought, or we
Survive: thy power is made but of our dread,
Death, if thou be.

Thy might is made out of our fear of thee:
Who fears thee not, hath plucked from off thine head
The crown of cloud that darkens earth and sea.

Earth, sea, and sky, as rain or vapour shed,
Shall vanish; all the shows of them shall flee:
Then shall we know full surely, quick or dead,
Death, if thou be.