Loss of a Friend

I just heard tonight some very sad news. My old friend Mark took his own life last Friday. We had the same birthday. He was 9 years older than me and one of my Dad's early students. He was a very good man. I am at a loss what to do or say. How can this be?, my brain keeps saying and running back over the same blank sentence. How can this be? Mark loved hunting and fishing and we always had a good laugh together. We were allot alike. I always felt some kind of special attachment to Mark because we had the same birthday and we saw the world in much the same way. I feel like I lost a brother. How can this be, my brain asks again? I just can't get my mind around this. He had such a wonderful voice. The way he talked was musical. Mark was so proud of his kids. I just keep thinking, "Oh my God. How is Becky going to cope with this and Ted?" Ted is so much like his dad and he will take it very hard. Mark why did you do it? I never saw this coming but then that seems to be the kind of thing you always here people say when someone takes their own life. Mark H. and I always said we were born in the wrong century. There was something so Adirondack about Mark. He was Teddy Roosevelt and Hemmingway. He was so bright and so sensitive. Here is a quote for you Mark. I know you thought Christianity was a crock but I think you are with the spirits. You are with the deer and the bear and with Honey.

"Absence and death are the same - only that in death there is no suffering. "
-Theodore Roosevelt