We have some very talented friends that put together an extremely special video tribute to Mark.  We played this video at his Celebration of Life.  We are forever grateful to our friends that edited this video, they gave us the gift of seeing Mark again and we want to share that gift with all of you. 

On November 23, 2024 we celebrated Mark's life.  This date was significant because it would have been his 11th birthday.  I was honored to eulogize Mark and his remarkable yet short life.  This is the eulogy.  

I am Bryan.  I am the really proud dad to two incredible boys, Mark and Jameson and husband to Ali.

I would be remiss if I didn’t take this opportunity to make a couple of acknowledgements.
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First, Mark’s Army.  That is everyone that has loved and supported Mark and our family in every way imaginable over the last year.  I wish that I could stand up here and personally thank you all individually for everything that you have done for Mark and our family.  Mark knew how much he was loved and supported and he also knew, unequivocally, that he was not alone in this fight.  That is the greatest gift you have given us.

She is going to be mad at me for doing this but I want to take a second to acknowledge Ali.  I have always been in awe of her but never more so than over the last year.  She is the glue that holds our family together.  We all know which parent Mark got his strength from.  You have shown us all what unconditional love, compassion and grace look like.  And to think that you did it all with a broken heart.  

I knew that I had to do this today, for Mark.  As his dad, I had to be the one to speak to his life and his legacy.  I don’t know how I am going to get through it but I know that if Mark can get through everything he went through over the last 10 months, I can draw on his strength to get through the next 10 minutes. 

I’ve learned a lot about myself over the last year.  One of the things that I learned is that I can convey my emotions through writing.  It helped me get through some really dark days early on.  I thought that writing this eulogy, this tribute would be easy.  Then I started writing it. 

I would spend a couple hours writing and then I would tear it up and throw it away.  This happened three or four times.  For the first time in my life I didn’t know what to say.  Don’t get me wrong, it's not because I didn’t have a lot to say.  I could talk about my boys for hours.  It was because I wanted it to be perfect.  For him.  Because he was.  I felt all of this pressure to due his life and his legacy justice.
 
One day last week, I went in his room and laid on his bed.  I held Max and talked to Mark.  As I lay in there thinking about what to say and how to perfectly say it, it hit me.  It was almost as if Mark was telling me, “it’s fine, dad.”  I am not up here today to define his legacy.  He did that on his own.  He did that by the way he lived.  By the way he treated others.  By the way he fought with everything he had while never once complaining.  Whatever I say up here for the next few minutes isn’t going to change how you hold Mark in your hearts now and forever.  Once I came to that realization, the words started to pour out. 

Most of you know Jameson, Mark's older brother.  When we found out we were expecting Jameson we did as any expecting first time parents do and go back and forth on what we were going to name him.  We even bought books for ideas.  One of us would throw a name out there and inevitably we knew someone that had named their kid that or that was the name of someone that maybe wasn’t so nice to one of us in high school.  All of you with kids know the drill.  This went on for months and we narrowed it down to our two favorites, Jameson or Travis.  What did we do?  We named him Jameson Travis.  Not for a minute did we stop to think that we may want to hang on to one of those if we had another boy at some point.  Well, about a year after Jameson was born that is exactly what happened and we were right back to square one. 

We decided that we were going to name our second son Mark fairly early on and we never waivered or second guessed it.  For all of the debate we had when we were coming up with Jameson’s name, this was the opposite.  It came to us and that was it.  His name was going to be Mark.  We kept it to ourselves and didn’t tell anyone until he was born.  Mark is not really a common name anymore. It is not a family name and we didn’t name him for religious reasons.  We liked it because it was simple, it was a good strong name.  He could say it in a crowded restaurant when introducing himself and people would understand him.  Mark. 

When he was born and we met him, the name fit him perfectly.  As he grew a little older it fit him even better.  He just looked like a Mark, if that makes any sense.  We had a lot of little nick names for him, Markie, Marky Mark, Markers, Mark-A-Roni and cheese, but the one that stuck was Sweet Mark. His name fit him to a tee.  

The Cambridge dictionary defines the term “to leave your Mark” as having a lasting effect that changes someone or something (repeat).  We didn’t know it then but we could not have picked a more perfect name for our son. 

As I laid in Mark’s bed that afternoon thinking about what to say today I saw an unfinished Lego set sitting on his nightstand.  It was the last Lego set that we ever worked on together.  It was a scene from Star Wars and we were about 100 pieces away from putting the finishing touches on it in April.  It was around that time his vision changed and he didn’t have the dexterity to hold the little pieces, so we never were able to finish it.  I started to cry thinking about that Lego set.  I was sad because we weren’t able to finish it together.  I was mad because it reminded me of all of the joy that his cancer robbed him of.  I thought about the parallels between Mark’s life and this unfinished Lego set.  I texted someone shortly after Mark died that one of the great tragedies in all of this is that we would never be able to see all of the good that Mark would do in the world.  But I was absolutely wrong about that.
  
I can see right now the good that he has already done in this world.  The day that Mark passed away we had the blessing of being able to tell him things that often get left unsaid.  I told him that in his 10 short years he touched more lives than people that live an entire lifetime.  Mark, everyone is here today because of your light, your spirit, your smile, your kindness. 

A friend sent us a message after Mark died and I think that she said it perfectly.  She said, “Mark was a shining light from the moment I met him.  He shined different and better than all kids his age – at all times.  He had something different and pure about him that was palpable.”  We all saw that kiddo.  You left your Mark on all of us just by being you.
 
Mark’s cancer was called Diffuse Midline Glioma.  It is extremely rare.  There are only 150-300 children diagnosed each year.  The odds are of even knowing someone that would get diagnosed with this are staggering and sickening, let alone it being your child.
 
We spent countless hours asking why Mark?  Out of all of the kids, why him?  God doesn’t make mistakes, so there has to be a reason, right? Early on we prayed that if Mark was rare enough to get this cancer he was rare enough to beat it.  We believed that and held onto that hope until it was clear that God was calling him home.  We prayed that because Mark was so special that maybe God gave him this cancer so that we could all be witness to God’s miracles.   As time went on and it became clear that Mark was not going to be miraculously cured, our thoughts shifted.  We prayed that maybe Mark would get into a trial.  And this trial would not just cure him but be a cure for all children afflicted with this awful cancer.  We prayed that even if Mark couldn’t be saved, that a cure would come from a trial that Mark was a part of.  We prayed that his life would not be in vain. 

Mark never got the chance to be a part of clinical trial.  Towards the end he was just too sick.  He fought so hard and courageously but he just never caught a break.  When it became clear that God was calling him we spent a lot of time pondering that. 

We now know that God knew that Mark could do more good for the world from Heaven and he was calling his angel home.  We are already seeing signs of this.  Mark has been gone for 15 days and there are already certain tangible things in the works to help other kids, in his name.  This is what he has done from Earth in 10 years, imagine what he will do from Heaven with eternity. You left your Mark, kid. 
  
The cancer took his life but it most certainly did not define his life. It was through his diagnosis that we were all inspired by his strength and his remarkable courage.  He did everything that was asked of him.  Every radiation treatment, every surgery, every IV and blood draw, every test, every pill, every ounce of medicine, every physical therapy session.  He did all of this and somehow he never once complained or asked why him.  It would have been totally understandable, normal, for him to say that it wasn’t fair.  It wasn’t fair at all.  But he never said that. The closest thing we heard to a complaint happened in June. 
 
We were in Omaha watching our Aggies in the College World Series.  This was after the radiation had taken it’s toll on his body and the steroids had caused him to go from 70lbs to 110 lbs.  He was in a wheelchair most of the time and sleeping about 18 hours a day.  Either the tumor or the radiation had made him physically unable to smile or cry.  It was with tears in his eyes that he asked Ali, “when am I going to be a normal kid again?”.  I’ve thought about that a lot.  It breaks by heart to think about but then it occurred to me.  You know what Mark?  You were NEVER a normal kid.  You were always special.  We are all better for knowing you.  You left your Mark.

Mark always cared about others more than himself.  During one of his stays in the hospital, I can’t remember which one, he told one of the child-life specialists that he was concerned about Ali and I.  Here he was, in a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV, probably a day or so removed from brain surgery and he was concerned about us.  He was always this way.  Not just with us but with everyone.  He genuinely cared about others feelings more than his own.  He always wanted to make sure that others were okay.  I think that is why he held on so long at the end. He wanted to make sure that we were okay before he left us.  The evening that Mark passed we told him that we would miss him tremendously but that we would be okay.  He left us about 10 minutes later.  
 
All of us will always hold a special place in our hearts for Mark.  Because of the way that Mark was maybe we will be a little kinder to someone today.  Maybe we’ll try a little harder to bring a smile to someone’s face or to make them laugh.  Maybe we will remember Mark when we are faced with a challenge or something we are scared to do and remember his bravery and courage.  
 
You lived up to your name, Mark.  You have touched the lives of so many.  People that you have never met.  People across the world that are inspired by your courage and heartbroken by your loss.  We see the Mark you left when people share with us how you touched their lives.  Or how you were such a good friend. I know that we will continue to see ways that you have left your Mark until we get to meet you up there again.  I promise you that we will do our best to honor your legacy and help you continue to leave your Mark from here.  And as you so inspiringly said  over and over,  we “just won’t let anything get in our way.”
 
But we will still miss you incredibly.  We are so blessed that God chose us to be your parents. We will always cherish the memories that we made with you.  In looking through all of the photos and videos in preparation for this weekend we were reminded of so many of those great memories.  We will take comfort in the fact that we didn’t waste any of the time with you that we were given.   

I will see your soul in every blue and orange sunrise and sunset.  I will think of you every time I hear a child laugh.  I will miss you every time I step on a Lego.  Unfortunately we don’t see a lot of blue elephants in College Station but I will always think of you every minute of every day.  Thank you for the 10 incredible years that we got with you.  Thank you for everything you taught us.  Thank you for being such an amazing kid.  We will see you again one day buddy.
 
From the time the boys were little, we recited the same bedtime prayer that most of you have probably heard and many of you probably say with your kids.  “now I lay me down to sleep. I pray to the lord my soul to keep.  MAY angels guide me through the night and wake me in the morning light.”  At least that is how Ali, Jameson and I said it.  Mark would never say “may angels” it was always “my angels”.  We laughed about about it and tried to correct him but it didn’t work.  Before we started the prayer we would say, “now Mark, remember it’s “MAY angels”.  Then we would say the prayer and it was right back to “MY Angels”.  Now this wasn’t just when he was three and didn’t know any better.  This went right up until the time that he was no longer able to speak, just a couple of months ago.
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“MY Angels guide me through the night”.  It turns out, we were saying it wrong.  They were his angels and he was one of them all along.