In 100 Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote, “no one dies when they should, they die when they can.” The line has vexed me ever since I read it.

Mark Sharples didn’t want to die. He didn’t need to die. But he could die, so he did. The official cause of death will read death due to strangulation, or whatever wording coroner’s assign to those who’ve hung themselves What will never be written, but what should be written is that Mark died becuase of institutional indifference.

I’ve known Mark for nearly thirty years. We were part of loosely confederated group of friends informally known as “Dial-a-Crowd.” Dial-a-Crowd’s specialty was our ability to assemble on quick notice and add life and laughter to any social activity regardless of time, date, or place. From the mid-70s through the 80s, Dial-a-Crowd moved swiftly and decisively to provide quiet comfort or loud, enthusiastic support for parties in need.

Mark was a major important fixture within Dial-a-Crowd. He had an infectious laugh that was ever ready. His wit was quick. He treated everyone well. I wasn’t Mark’s oldest friend or his best friend. We lived two doors from each other throughout the 80s. He’ll live in my memories as long my memory holds.

Mark was blessed with the soft, strong hands of an artist. (Click here to view his latest work with stained glass, then click the link below the picture for a recent photo of Mark). Mark was tenderly eulogized by his old and dear friend Fritz Beeson (a former citizen of EL). Fritz spoke of Mark’s hands, his art, and Mark’s wonderful nature. Fritz finished the eulogy by reading a few stanza’s of Mark’s favorite poem, one of P.B. Shelley’s dandies, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

How Mark ended up with no health insurance isn’t my business. He experienced abdominal pain and nausea last Thanksgiving. Uninsured, he was forced to the emergency room at County Hospital in Phoenix. The harried medical staff was confounded by Mark’s symptoms. He was given medication and sent home.

His condition worsened in early December, and he returned to the ER. Again, Mark was given the routine battery of tests given to those without insurance, and once more the medicos were stumped. They told Mark’s partner, Allen, that there was a 70% chance that Mark’s appendix was the culprit. So, they removed his appendix.

Mark was released from the hospital less than 24 hours after the surgery. The nausea and discomfort remained and less than a week later Mark was back in the ER. The appendix wasn’t the culprit.

This time the medicos did a little more homework and found a perforation in his bowel. Surgeons operated and repaired the perforation. Mark recuperated and in February he returned to work.

Shortly thereafter, sometime in March, Mark started experiencing intense, stabbing pain in his lower back. The pain reached around his left side and extended toward his abdomen. He was unable to eat. When the pain became too much to bear, Mark was back in the ER.

The doctors took pictures and ran tests. Again, they were stumped. They couldn’t find the source or cause of his pain. They gave him medication and sent him home. No follow-up. No professional curiosity. No physician took the time to review his records, to understand his recent medical history, to connect the dots of an ever worsening situation.

When the Vicodin script ran out, Mark was back in the ER, this time in tears. Mark saw a different doctor each time he was in the hospital, and this time he didn’t meet a quack quick to misdiagnose his symptoms. This time he met an indifferent jackass who diagnosed him a junkie looking for fast Vicodin fix.

Mark got his script, but he didn’t get help he desperately needed. He was embarrassed, demoralized, and felt the weight of the world stacking against him. Mark’s script was written with strict orders forbidding a refill before a certain date. With his symptoms worsening, Mark needed a refill two days before his script allowed. The doctor who wrote the script never told Mark or Allen of the script’s strict conditions, and when Allen went to get the prescription refilled he was curtly refused by the pharmacist. The pain was excruciating. The pain came in waves every couple of hours. He could only eat soft foods. He weighed 130 pounds. Mark didn’t wait for the refill.

Mark understood irony. He had a cynic’s eye for life’s banalities. He must have known that an insurance card would have given him entrance to the Mayo Hospital (just 15 miles to the north) where he would have been treated and cured by physicians who practice medicine as an art.

Instead he was sentenced to County General where medicine is practiced as bureaucracy. It was where Mark’s life was made a living hell and eventually cut short.

Dial-a-Crowd convened on Tuesday to say good-bye to Mark. We laughed. We toasted. We missed his smile, his laugh, his gentle presence. Then we realized that he was really gone.

See ya, Mark.

Sam

P.S. August 2, 2003

Mark's autopsy revealed that he had advanced pancreatic cancer. On all counts he deserved better.