Mark Olen Brown

Thank you for coming to this site to honor our brother, Mark O. Brown. As some of you know, Mark passed from this life on Wednesday, 12/11/24.

I want to honor my sweet brother Mark by telling you all the many wonderful things he did with his 64 years.

1. He attended Sahuaro High School and then Pima Community College, as well as completing firefighting training.

2. He and his wife of 24 years, Christi Brown, raised a beautiful daughter, Melissa Renee, who graduates this May from osteopathic medical school. She will carry on his legacy of caring for others.

3. He had faith that Jesus was his Savior. This fact provides peace to those of us he left behind.

4. He faithfully served in the church for many years.

5. He loved collecting and listening to Christian music.

6. He was an avid backpacker. His goal was to climb the tallest mountain in every state. He did not complete all 50 states, but he did tackle Mt. Rainier in Washington, Wheeler Peak in New Mexico, Humphreys Peak in Arizona, and Mt. Whitney in California. He shared many wonderful hikes in and around Tucson with many of his good friends. This is how we choose to remember Mark, breathing in the crisp mountain air, in the winter, atop of the Rincon mountains with his buddies (and pooping from the fire tower as well). Yes, he really did do that. That was our Mark.

7. He had his own landscaping business for over 40 years. He was a very hard worker and took pride in doing a good job at a fair price for his customers. Many of his customers were elderly and he would take time to listen to them and get to know them. He gained their trust through hard work and kindness.

8. He had great sense of humor and loved to laugh. He had a big toothy grin that we loved.

9. He loved his dogs, one of whom he & his wife rescued. This dog was pregnant, they knew it and rescued her anyway, working hard together to raise her pups.

10. Mark saved the life of a child who had wandered away from a campground in Silverton, Colorado. Mark was on a hike and came across the young boy. He ended his hike immediately and carried the boy all the way back down to the mountain to camp, delivering him in his mother’s arms. He was a hero that day and they took him out for a steak dinner.

11. He was honest. As a young man he found someone stealing gold nuggets U of A geology department. He knew he had to let the authorities know which was hard because he knew that person as a friend.

12. In his younger years he enjoyed collecting gems and minerals.

We thank each one of you who knew and loved Mark and brought JOY into his life. Please hang on to those memories of Mark. Will you honor Mark by writing a short description of a fun time you had with him and posting a picture if you have one?

Sadly, Mark took his own life. Most people don’t want to share that kind of information, but we do. We want others to know that Mark struggled with many layers of unprocessed hurt, disappointment and anger. As humans we all share these emotions and Mark was no different. When you are in that very dark place, things that shouldn’t make sense, do. It seems right to do whatever you have to do to stop the pain. We encourage everyone to process your own pain with someone you trust. Consider seeing a pastor, counselor or therapist. For those who are Christians, you can find many wonderful faith-based counselors. Check to see if your insurance or Employee Assistance Program (EAP) will cover it. Having someone else validate your pain really does help and can lead you to develop new ways of coping. In fact, research shows it is as effective as medications. Mark also demonstrated signs of chronic depression, anxiety, and insomnia, on & off throughout his life. We do have a family history of mental illness on our mother’s side which can contribute to these sorts of disease processes. Medications may have also been of help for Mark. I, myself (Mark’s sister Myra), have been diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder and chronic insomnia and take medications for both, with benefit. Unfortunately, Mark was not really open to either of these. Now we wish we had pushed him harder in that direction.

Some of you may know that Mark had insulin-dependent diabetes. He was struggling with the burden of that condition as he grew older. There is some evidence that Mark may have been self-treating his depression with sugar throughout his life. Of course, there are worse things to self-treat with, but it put him in a catch-22. Do I relieve my depression with sugar, or do I remain healthy and keep my blood sugars down? Toward the end he chose to go off his diet and eat whatever he wanted. We are pretty sure this affected his health, his thinking and his ability to cope.

You can make a donation, if you desire, to his favorite charity, Angels for Animals (www.angelsforanimals.org) or purchasing a tree to be planted in his honor through Arbor Day Foundation (www.arborday.org).

Will you also honor those in your life who may be struggling? Encourage them to reach out and take advantage of

resources that we know can help.

We look forward to seeing Mark made whole in Heaven but we will miss him very much until that time.

We chose to have just a private family memorial for Mark. He had let us know, through the years, that he wanted his

ashes spread in the meadow atop of Mt. Lemmon. He wanted us to all wear Hawaiian shirts and bring whoopee

cushions. We will do all of the above. God bless you all.

Love you, Mark O. Love you Dad.

TRIBUTE TO MY BIG BROTHER, THE COYOTE: MARK OLEN BROWN 6/15/1960- 12/09/24

When my big brother Mark was born into the Tucson desert, he was only 2 lbs. 14 ounces but, against all odds, survived and began to thrive. Like the juvenile coyotes I’ve seen playing, Mark too took to jest and sport, pranks and tricks. This young coyote was not going to stay indoors and engage in literary pursuits. Mark was the wiry, sweaty kid with the dark tan who was quick on his feet and down for baseball, and Boy Scouts, backpacking, and marching band. I admired my big brother for his strength, his drive, and occasionally, his silly pranks and antics…except, of course, when they were directed at me. As a youthful and free agent, Mark took great pleasure in testing the limits of his coyote craftiness. He became very adept at nailing his target with locally sourced rocks: tree trunks, street signs, and occasionally, a car window. He was quite fond of the element of surprise and was known to derive much satisfaction from startling sleeping neighbors with a loud thud on their roof, usually a brick or hefty stone.

Like the wolf, originally drawn to campfires and the smell of burning animal flesh, the coyote, too, has flames in his eyes. This might explain Mark’s early onset pyromania. At age 8, he lit the carpet in the hall on fire. Luckily, the parents were present and the flames quickly doused. The scorched brown patch, the size of a pancake, remained in the hall for years, a reminder of Mark’s foray with fire. That may have been his first but wasn’t his last incendiary adventure. Mark eventually turned his fascination with fire into a positive, spending a season as a forest firefighter.

Mark, like a coyote, could be stealthy and shrewd when it came to navigating his territory. As kids, he initiated me in the ways of the bicycle and we would ride and explore our desert territory for hours, showing me forbidden lands: the hidden and abandoned desert crack house, the top-secret geomagnetic observatory in what is now Morris K. Udall Park, and the local landfill where he taught me how to readily find discarded “girly” magazines. Mark really was an adept scout and a guide. It’s no wonder he took quite naturally to hiking, camping, and mountain climbing.

Our Father, Richard Brown, deserves much credit for instilling in all of us kids a healthy respect and love for nature and adventure. As a teacher, he took us on many a road trip, during our many vacations, in a dusty blue pickup truck and taught us orientation and survival skills, but most of all, reverence, respect and awe for God’s country. It was my brother who took most naturally and easily to the great outdoors. Just like a coyote on a mission, Mark could really cover some incredible distances and territory. His wanderings became his passion and his forte. I don’t think there are many mountain peaks in Arizona that Mark didn’t conquer in his 64 years on this earth.

Mark took to the outdoors even as a preadolescent, and, thanks to good parenting, learned that he could buy the hiking things he wanted by working for pay. He began pulling weeds for neighbors and eventually took on a substantial paper route. My brother Mark even got me a job delivering newspapers and coached me in how to not crash my bicycle at 3 in morning, while loaded down with what seemed like 100 lbs. of newspapers. My coyote brother was the first peer example of persistence, determination, and sweat equity.

Speaking of sweat, I remember the smell of his sleeping bag and also the mustiness of his tent. I can still hear the clanging aluminum camping equipment that he laid out as he prepared for his hikes, and the crinkling freeze-dried food packets that were carefully weighed and deliberated over to minimize the weight of his backpack. My big brother was a hiking genius and I marveled at and admired his all-consuming passion.

Around the age of 15, on a family camping trip, Mark decided he was tough enough to brave the Colorado night time chill by sleeping, al fresco, in his sleeping bag, on the ground. In the morning, Mark related just how harrowing that experience was; sharing his sleeping bag with a skunk who decided Mark’s chest was just the warm spot it needed for a chilly autumn night. Showing the mountains and nature who was boss became Mark’s way of testing his metal and finding his inner strength and self-confidence. Maybe he got tired of hearing the story about how tiny and premature he was as a baby. This coyote may have been the runt, but he had a great big wolf inside of him that was confident while canvassing his territory.

And then, we graduated high school, and went our separate ways. Mark attended Pima Community College for a time, but, perhaps lacking confidence or developing severe boredom, decided instead to become a live-in janitor at Camp Adventure, a local private school. They gave him a small trailer to live in on campus and included “security” in his job title. He seemed happy to be in his own space and living on his own terms. And what a mess that trailer was. There is a scent that often accompanies certain bachelor pads. Mark’s had that scent. It was surely due to the pile of dirty clothes, the dusty carpet, and definitely the black stained bathtub that was never washed. Oddly, for me, it wasn’t foul. Rather, it was a masculine smell; the smell of adventure, with a hint of devil-may-care abandon. I loved that Mark had his own style and didn’t need to put on airs. His coyote den was adequate for his own needs.

They say that the coyote has a developed sense of humor and can be a bit of a trickster as well. True to his coyote spirit, Mark took great pleasure in laughing, joking, and pranking. I remember Mark’s confidence and dead pan question posed to a woman at a bus bench that he drove along side of. “Hey, Lady! Wanna see my mosquito bites?”. I was horrified. He was always quite pleased with himself. On another occasion, at the movie theater, Mark waited for the most intense and gripping moment in the movie, and just before the intense horror scene hit its climax, Mark let out a blood curdling scream, prematurely. The oddity of his behavior made much of the audience laugh out loud, and in the process, miss the horrific surprise. Again, he was quite pleased with his prankster prowess.

The fun and games, however, took a backseat as this coyote soon found a mate in Christi, his young wife, and, together, they created a beautiful little family with their daughter Melissa. One thing we know about coyotes is that they are actively defensive of their den and their family. Mark fit that description very well. In fact, I believe that Mark’s new role as father and husband gave him even more joy and purpose than climbing any mountain ever could. He was very proud and protective of his little family and took his role as father very seriously. Indeed, Mark’s greatest accomplishment is his daughter, Melissa, who flourished under her mother’s and father’s guidance, achieving excellence in music, swimming, and academic pursuits. Melissa will soon graduate from medical school. That level of excellence does not generally happen without ample guidance, love, and expert parenting.

And, as most parenting stories go, with his daughter off to college, Mark eventually began to experience empty nest syndrome. I believe the sudden loss of immediate purpose began to send him down a dark path. Many other challenges of life began to emerge, divorce, money issues, and the toll that running his own landscape maintenance business was taking on his body. Struggles with a draconian and inept healthcare system and lack of finances surely demoralized Mark and his attempt to alleviate his health issues. Mark found himself unable to cope without a Seven Eleven cherry slurpy and a big doughnut or two. And thus began his struggle with diabetes. Like the coyote who becomes accustomed to human food, Mark continued down that dark path to metabolic dysfunction with what has increasingly become an American diet of excessive sugar, carbs, processed, modified and artificial foods. The U.S. Center for Disease Control has found that roughly 1 in 3 Americans is prediabetic. Mark’s type two diabetes became severe 3 and a half years ago when his blood turned to syrup. The human body finds ways to compensate for excess and injury and, in this case, excessive thirst developed to try to flush out the glucose. Oddly, excessive urination can then deplete the sodium level in the bloodstream (hyponatremia), which has all kinds of effects on the body and brain. In this particular situation, I had to practically drag my brother Mark to the emergency room as he had become incoherent, belligerent, childlike, and unreasonable. They kept him in the hospital for 5 days to slowly bring his sodium level back up and get him set up with his first treatment of insulin. He improved steadily and appeared to be managing his diabetes quite well. I would ask him periodically how things were going and he always had positive and reassuring responses. I thought Mark had it under control. He didn’t.

Coyotes are crafty. They dart in and out, move swiftly and quietly, often undetected. They appear to be secretive and private. And so was Mark, especially in the last year of his life.

What I realize in retrospect, is that I didn’t really know my brother. Through the years, we maintained a civil and respectful relationship. Checked in by phone on occasion, and saw each other at family gatherings during holidays. We knew we were very different from each other and I think we were ok with that. I was happy to let Mark be Mark and I believe he felt the same about me. We would certainly have each other’s back or lend a helping hand if one of us needed it. I’m not sure that we ever spent any time together one on one, brother to brother. The pressures of family life seemed to prevent it. Then geography got in the way.

It's normal to have regrets when we lose someone. I guess we think we have all the time in the world to do the things we know we should do and the things we might like to do. We might have gone on a hike together, walked the dogs together. I might have invited him to lunch at a funky, ethnic restaurant just to try to stretch him a bit! I could have joined him in a yard job and shared some of the hard work that characterized my brother’s strength and stamina. I did little to try to get into his world. I own that. I regret that. Too late now.

The honest truth is that I never thought that Mark would lose his drive to live. I loved seeing him laugh at silly talking dog videos. He was passionate about inspirational Christian music. His collection of sophomoric comedy movies (the kinds we all hate to love) was impressive. And he derived great pleasure from his daily routines, not the least of which was walking his dogs at 4 am. As long as I have known Mark, he was part of a dog pack. That is something we both have in common. I thought Mark was ok. He had problems but seemed to be able to laugh at them or at least be sardonic about them. I now know that I never really had that talk; the heart to heart talk. I never asked him how he was REALLY doing. And I’m not really sure if he would have revealed his weaknesses or needs. Not untypical of most men.

I am starting to wonder if I really know anyone to any great degree. Maybe we all hide things…things we don’t dare reveal lest we look weak, needy, incompetent, demanding, unreasonable… I guess the operative skill we all must hone is reading between the lines. That’s hard to do when you don’t talk to someone or spend any time with him or her.

So now I’m (we’re) left with the memories, and the vision of the way things could have been. I would have loved it if Mark could have found a way to retire. To sit back and relax for a change…indulge in countless stupid movies, go on a few more simple hikes, see his daughter graduate, travel with his significant other, Jackie, start feeling better with more time to focus on diet and exercise. And maybe even spend more time with his busy, preoccupied little brother.

The urban coyote just HAS to be jaded. It must be exhausting, darting here and there, half in and half out of a world you don’t really belong to. Humans scurry around, mostly indifferent to you. You develop a thick skin, survival skills, and a kind of solitary detachment.

I believe Mark developed, over time, a type D personality; a glass half empty, stuff your feelings, keep to yourself, believe in the worst, kind of outlook on life. This can happen to many people that toil and come up against a culture that is indifferent to one’s unique needs. Layered on top of his existing depressive/negative nature was the specter of diabetes, which poisoned his brain to the point of desperation. He became increasingly susceptible to conspiracy theories and began to amass a lot of ammunition. Who knows whom you might have to fend off when the shit hits the fan? I’m sure he never thought that the enemy he’d actually end up fighting with that ammunition were the dark voices inside of his own head.

I am pained by the vision of him in those final moments, so hopeless that this decision seemed like relief and the only way out. Alone, in his truck, near the Pantano wash…a clear view of the Catalina and Rincon mountains that he climbed so many times and loved so dearly, Mark took his life. This coyote chose to fade into the sunrise… no note, no goodbye; a silent, mysterious, melancholy departure.

Losing my brother seems incomprehensible. I don’t know that I will ever really be able to accept that he actually did it… That wasn’t my brother. It can’t be. I have to separate the two Marks. I have to now focus on the Mark who conquered mountains, whose love for his family was so strong that he would have defended them against all odds. I will focus on the Mark who laughed and pranked freely and loved his customers and stray dogs and the wind in his face.

I am comforted by the thought that Mark did find enjoyment in life. He did embrace the silly and the beautiful: in nature, in music, in family, and in animals.

I will cherish the memories of him conquering mountains.

I will cherish the memories of him wearing his Dad and Husband hat.

I will cherish the vision of the campfire gleaming in his eyes.

I will cherish the thought of him religiously walking his dogs, at Dawn and at Dusk…Crepuscular… like city coyotes, soaking in the gift of both sunrise and sunset.

Living in southern Arizona, I know that I will, inevitably, cross paths with a coyote at some point and will hope to catch his eye, just for a moment. Whenever I hear him laughing at the moon, I will say a prayer and thank God that my brother did have 64 years on this earth. I believe most of them were good.

Miss you and love you, big brother.

Martin Brown

1/27/25