Lantau Island for Mark

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When I got the news that someone I loved is gone, I wanted to honor him and my memories of him. I thought I might travel to one of the outlying islands surrounding Hong Kong, Lantau Island, and spend some time 'with' Mark.

I am thankful we shared sunsets and sunrises, campfires, lakehouses and starry Texas skies, good Kentucky whiskey and Houston Astros games. I will be the same age as Mark lived when my journey comes to an end here--so, I want to make the most of the time I have on this journey--as he and the Buddha said "love it and let it go".

Watch more sunsets and sunrises, gaze at more starry skies and stare into more campfires--for Mark, that was what this life was about. And when we're petty toward someone else or ourselves, ask "Do I really have time for this"? Because really, we don't...

This one's for you, Mark.

To An Athlete Dying Young

A.E. Housman

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears.

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom reknown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.



Like a flame that has been blown out by a strong wind goes to rest and cannot be defined, just so the sage who is freed from name and body goes to rest and cannot be defined.
For him who has gone to rest there is no measure by means of which one could describe him; that is not for him. When all dharmas have gone, all signs of recognition have also gone.



Now, take back the soul of Mark 'Tex' Elliott
whom you have shared with us,
he brought us joy and we loved him well,
he was not ours...he was not mine.



GIFTS
Sara Teasdale

I GAVE my first love laughter,
I gave my second tears,
I gave my third love silence
Thru all the years.

My first love gave me singing,
My second eyes to see,
But oh, it was my third love
Who gave my soul to me.

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Comments

[Sharon]

Your friend
Me Sa, I am so sorry about your friend Mark. I can tell he was a very special friend to you, and I am sorry for you that he is gone from this earth.