Grave Matters: The Best Friend - Mark Branaman

Mark Branaman Memorial Service
19 May 2017
Brian Hoffman

If you examined the trajectory of your life, I doubt that you would think that we would be here, at this time, for Mark.  In fact, I thought that in the end, Mark would be here for Rodney or Branton as the last man standing.  But death is no respecter of plans or schedules.  In fact, it’s darned inconvenient.  It’s a tribute to Mark, his family and his family of friends that you are all here today.  If everyone who wanted to be here, but were unable to do so, showed up, we’d not have enough space here.

So where do you begin?  How do you sum up Mark in a few minutes?  I’m told that we are supposed to be done by 6.  So here goes.

Throughout my adult life, I have heard how rare it is for men to form long-term friendships,especially with other men.  You couldn’t prove it by me.  I met Mark in August of 1977 in 8^th grade Spanish class.  I was the new kid, serious about school, trying to really learn Spanish.  Mark was trying out being the class clown, probably being the only time he really acted out in school.  I still laugh when I think about Mark smart-alecking Se̴ñora Hurst and ending up doing time in the puppet theatre.  When he still caused problems, she pushed a couple of books in on him.  I can still hear “Ouch!”  When he found out that I was interested in running (we had a cross-country and track team in 7^th grade in Minnesota), he told me “My brother Robbie is a runner at Central and he could beat you any time!” – he loved and respected his big brother.  Outwardly, I was cool.  Inside, I thought “Well yeah, I can run forever, but not very quickly”.  I thought that this kid would never like me.

That was the only class we were in together.  

We bonded entirely through running, which might interest people who don’t think that sports in high school are important.  We ran summer track together, then cross-country, snowman/polar bear club and track.  After running literally thousands of miles together, you learn a few things about a guy – and it was all good.  As teammates, we became inseparable.  We ran the railroad tracks out to Missouri Western (and back) together.  We ran in the same training groups and pushed (or pulled) each other to become better runners.  When we were in a race, if one passed the other we gave a pat and said “Let’s go!”  More than anyone else that I have known, Mark could find joy in the success of others.  If he beat you, and you did well, that meant that he had done that much better.  If you beat him, had a good race and he was close, that meant that he had done well, also.  Our high-school cross-country team didn’t have a real standout runner. But we had a lot of really good runners.  We found that the more runners we could stack together, the more races, trophies and medals we would win – and Mark was the cheerleader that made us all believe it.

Before I knew it, or knew how it happened, we added friends from across every socioeconomic, racial/ethnic, and academic level.  Stonecrest, South Park, Midtown, Deer Park, Hillcrest…all running together (literally and figuratively).  We had known of Rodney Pixler in middle school, but really got to know him in track.  We picked up Danny Butterfield along the way.  Those guys form the core group that I really hang with from high school.  We split up in college – all of the other guys went to SMS and I went to Park College, but we stayed in touch and come summer, we were running together again.  The SMS cross-country and track guys became my friends as well.

Mark was my best friend.  That is not a unique claim.  He was Rodney’s best friend.  He was Danny’s best friend.  I am sure that many of you out there will stand and say, “Mark was my best friend”.  One of the amazing things about Mark was his capacity to love and be everyone’s best friend.  When I look across this room at the people I know and those that I don’t but may have heard of, the one thing we have in common is Mark.  That man is the glue that bonds all of us, and made sure that we met up and enjoyed good times together.

I’ll let you in on a little secret.  I hate running.  Running is uncomfortable.  Running hurts.  Why do I run?  Because it was the only sport that I was any good at.  Because it is the only exercise that keeps any kind of weight off me.  But mostly because of the guys.  I so look forward to the weekends running with Mark, Rodney and Branton and the times we have had at races, that the pain is worth it.  That is what has always made running worth it.  The racing, the achieving together, the pizza, pinball, video game arcades, baseball games, the music, the beer.  The being together.  We are training for a 10 mile race at Garden of the Gods in Colorado next month.  Mark was really looking forward to the trip and was the last thing we talked about.  It is going to be strange to toe the line without him.

At first glance, you may not have thought of Mark as a great athlete.  He was always a bit bigger (not necessarily taller) than most of us.  Coach Chavez called him Tank because of his size.  In college, he became “Barney” (as in Rubble).  First a baseball player, then a runner, he was a fierce competitor.  That was a contradiction, because he never seemed to take the competition too seriously.  But once locked in, he was nails.  When the stakes were highest, he ran his best.  He usually moved up one or two positions (six our sophomore year) on the cross-country team in the last three races of the season, when we needed it the most.   I haven’t seen many with his tolerance for pain.  I can still see him blond-haired, red-faced, breathing hard and spraying sweat with every step on his way to an All-State finish at the 1981 State Cross-Country Championships and our then school high 4^th place finish.  It was his signature look.  He was not the fastest short distance runner, but his grit kept him on the 4x800 meter relay team that became district champions in 1982.  We stood on the podium together often and it was always my honor.

If you knew Mark, you’d know that he valued family above all.  He came by it honestly.  Dean, Ruth, Rob and Mark took in countless young men and gave them wonderful models of unconditional love.  The Branaman house on Monterey in St. Joseph was runner central.  My own parents were not able to attend more than a few meets, but Ruth and Dean were always there.  They welcomed us into their lives, treated us like their own, and treated us like adults.  More than one person will tell you that they know what a great family is from knowing the Branamans.  I learned that your family was not defined by birth, but could be formed by choice.

My advice to young men is to find a woman that is out of your league, get her to like you and convince her to marry you – before she finds out what a horrible mistake that she has made.  Mark took that advice well.  He met Stacey at college in 1982.  He told me about this beautiful, wonderful woman he met and I HAD to meet her.  Stacey was absolutely the love of Mark’s life.  She is the only woman that I knew him to try much to better himself for and really find out what she liked and find out as much as he could about that stuff and experience it.  They were peas in a pod, through good times and bad.  Their nearly 30 year marriage is a testament to their love (and her patience).  Her friends became his friends and many of them became my friends.

The thing that people remember most about Mark is his fun-loving nature.  It was his most endearing quality and perhaps his biggest shortcoming.  Anything fun that was worth doing was worth overdoing, and that sometimes landed us in trouble.  Mark got me thrown out of a bar – twice.  I earned my way out once, pouring a pitcher of beer on a bouncer’s feet.  I like to think that we were balancing influences on each other – my uptightness tempered by and tempering his outgoing personality.  Stacey provided balance to Mark, as well, providing him the greatest reason to reign in that impulsiveness.  Mark was a great person.  Stacey made him want to be better.

Mark was born to be a Dad and he and Stacey had to overcome tremendous obstacles to have Dean. We shared that joy as we and the Pixler’s also had sons within the span of six weeks.  Dean soon became the focal point of their family.  Mark and Stacey encouraged him to find himself and became involved in his interests.  Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, band….everything.  Mark and Stacey spent the time driving, going to meetings, camping, hiking and sent Dean on the path to become the stellar man that he is today.

How many of you ever did something that you thought you wouldn’t – go to a concert, go on a hike, camp, run, go to a ballgame – because of Mark’s invitation?  How many of you saw Mark do something that you never thought he’d be interested in?  How many times were there people there that Mark knew that became your friend, as well?  That was how Mark showed love.  He involved you in his life and he in yours.  If he loved you and you had an interest, he spent time to learn about that interest and enjoy it.

So many things to say and so little time to say it.  In thinking of this, I tried to think of things like “What were Mark’s hobbies” and “What did Mark collect?”.  You know what Mark collected?  He collected friends and family.  He would go out of his way to be there for anyone he considered family.  That is why this is so hard.  Do you cry because Mark is gone?  I sure do.  Do you feel an emptiness?  Yep.  That is a good thing.  The amount of pain you feel is directly related to how much love you shared with him. Good times, bad times, victories, losses, successes, failures, headaches and heartbreaks.  As time goes by, the sharpness will diminish.  You will laugh and have good times.  That is good, too.  That means that the void left in our lives is being filled back up by memories of the times that we have shared together.  Mark would appreciate that.  We may never feel whole again, but we are better for having known Mark.

Do you have a favorite memory of Mark? I encourage you to write them down on paper and send them to Stacey, Dean, Ruth or Robbie,  or post them on Facebook so that they can be shared. Each of us knew a slightly different Mark.   I have hours of material that I had to trim down.  Mark always made fun of how long I could talk,  so I’m going to wrap this up, leaving too much unsaid.

One of Mark’s biggest desires was to be remembered as a good man.  You succeeded my brother by choice.  While too short, yours was a life well-lived.  I will love you forever.  Take heart my friends, Mark will always be a part of you.  May the same be said of us when life goes on in our absence.

Humpin' it up Big Momma!

Mark Branaman Obituary