Farewell Mark – you will be fondly remembered
We recently said goodbye to one of our long-term residents, Mark who passed away from a heart attack on Thursday 5 June 2014.
Mark will be remembered fondly – he was certainly a character with a very creative, yet analytical mind.
He would sometimes go for a walk and get inspired by something he had seen and then recreate it in a drawing or painting. At times he would talk to anyone who would listen about the intricacies of making dodecahedrons out of coloured paper.
He was fascinated with making shapes, colours and feats of engineering.
Homeless Facts sometimes forget to talk about the personal side of those who are homeless. Many have very colourful and interesting pasts, may be creative, some have been professional people who have had interesting careers or experiences. The homeless are just like everyone else, they’ve just had a different turn of events from the norm. Mark certainly fitted this definition.
One weekend we had some visitors at the Shelter and Mark very enthusiastically brought out one after another of his paper creations to show them, and spoke at length to our visitors (one of which also has a scientific mind) about how he’d like to make a full sized coffee table out of paper.
One of our volunteers recounts that Mark told him something was wrong with the motor of his vehicle because he could hear that there was a problem with the engine.
Lo and behold if the vehicle didn’t break down the following week and the problem was exactly what Mark had intuitively recounted.
Although he had a challenging life, over the last year Mark had reunited with his family and had started going to church at our On the Edge service of a Sunday evening.
We will remember Mark fondly and some of his artwork will always hang in pride of place at Sheltered by Grace. For anyone who knew Mark and would like to offer their condolences, you are welcome to sign an online Obituary/Guest Book. It will be online until 11 July 2014.
