Mark Bourne, as many of you know, died on Saturday, February 26. We were not as close as I wish we had been; As I have been saying to people, not only did I like Mark but he was one of my favorite people. Being around Mark was just a great experience. Mark was warm, funny, interesting. He was witty - and I have learned over the years that "witty" is an outstanding quality in people.

I am damn angry about losing Mark. I know that is stupid and useless, but I cannot escape the feeling. there are awful people out there, lots it seems lately, who we could lose and the world would be a better place. I really think that. I am not evolved enough to believe everyone has value. They might, but good people are more important than bad.

Mark was 50. Yeah, right. He was only fifty years old. He filled the room. He was joyful, he was enthusiastic about cool, important things.

Most, or many of you who knew Mark, probably know David Levine. Yeah, "the twins". I don't know exactly when it started, but Stu and I used to attend Orycon, the s.f. convention in Portland. On the first night, they offered an amazing, terrific version of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" David and Mark were scary good. They were on the same wavelength. They were painfully, amazingly, astounding funny and they got each other so well. I spoke with David on Saturday and we talked about that. And about how the blond Mark and the brunette David were both not exactly very tall and shared the same hairline. The twins. We just began using it about these two guys. They shared something weirdly wonderful. Who cares if they weren't related? (Hey look, I refer to Cornelia Read as my "twin sister, separated at birth" because her birthday, we discovered early on, is one day before mine. Okay okay, ten years after I was born but well, heck. What's your point?)

We didn't spend a lot of time with Mark and Elizabeth, something we always talked about and didn't act on. A large clump of that was that they live in West Seattle, while we're in North Seattle. Without a vehicle. It reminded me of going to visit a friend in Brooklyn while staying at Stu's place in Washington Heights. This is not a complaint or whine. Just dismay that we did not try to take advantage when they moved to Seattle.

Mark almost died a few years ago. I think we all breathed a little easier when the first anniversary of his dreadful hospitalization passed. It was terrifying. Elizabeth showed us all she was made of steel as well as silk in fighting for Mark every day, every minute he was in the hospital and beyond. We almost lost him. Many of us felt helpless and did what we could, which didn't feel like anything. It will sound just bizarre to say that the couple of hours I spent with Mark in his hospital room, him comatose or semi-comatose, me reading letters and short essays and articles by Groucho Marx. I did it to give Elizabeth a lunch break. The doctors - and Elizabeth - could tell that Mark "heard" and responded when he heard familiar voices. So I sat there, saying absolutely normal stuff like "oh, Mark, this one looks great. It's about [fill in a topic]" and I'd read it to him as if he were all there. I think I asked some weeks or months later, and I think he said he did remember. It's an awkward self-serving question, but I so hoped it had, for a short time, given him something good to focus on. I was too wound up and nervous to just sit and tried not to go again when it was clear I was not helpful. I blather when anxious, when nervous, and I always need to do< something. I suck at just sitting.

When Mark got out of the hospital after weeks and weeks in bed, he and Elizabeth came over to use the Andi Shechter Crip Item Lending Library (free stuff if you need a wheelchair or crutches or bath bench.) since Mark reluctantly had to use help for a while until his body recovered. And as he was not the tallest guy around, and did not fit standard stuff, we worked to find ways for hm to be a little more comfortable.

I am so very angry. Elizabeth has lost her husband. We have lost a writer, a bon vivant, a warmly witty dude with a great curiosity about things and lots to give us. To steal from Darrin Bell's Feb. 21 "Candorville" cartoon about Whitney Houston the other day "I'm sick of the artists I love dying on me when they had so much left to give me."

I have permission from a friend to post this story she told after she heard the news. Janet Freeman-Daley told this story on her Facebook page. it's pretty damn perfect.

"My favorite Mark memory was at "Washicon" with Elizabeth Bourne and Janna Silverstein. I had just told the group, who knew of my Stage IV lung cancer diagnosis, that it was OK to ask me anything. Mark leaned towards me, looked me intently in the eye, and said, "OK...what IS dark matter?"

Goddamit Mark. You fought so hard for so long. You fought against a big huge death monster and you beat it back. You deserved more time. We deserved more time with you.