Mark, 5-stars, Terminal C-3
An Uber request neither of us is likely to forget
The Uber request came in a little before midnight. “Mark, 5-stars, Terminal C-3”
I don’t know why I was the one who received that Uber request. Maybe it was fate. Maybe it was random chance. Maybe it was something else. All I know is I received the request, and because I did, neither of us would ever be the same. I heard his cry for help, and in it, I found the answers I had been seeking for nearly two decades.
I pulled into the Uber lane at terminal C, and a young man who appeared to be in his early 20s flagged me down. “I’m Mark,” he said as he climbed into the back seat of my SUV. I noticed he had no luggage, but that wasn’t all that unusual. Employee requests came through every now and then.
I pulled out of the terminal and started the drive toward the freeway. About 30 to 45 seconds into the trip, the Uber app finally updated. “Rider Cancelled.”
I asked Mark what happened. He didn’t answer me. I told him he needed to put the address back in because that was how I got paid.
He reached over the seat, dropped several $20 bills on the passenger seat, and said, “You’re paid. Please, just drive. I don’t care where. Just drive.”
It was the middle of the night. I had just picked up an Uber passenger at the airport with no luggage and now I had no record of who he was or where I was taking him. I should have been scared. I wasn’t. I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t know his story. Somehow I knew, though, he wasn’t there to hurt me.
I drove to the freeway and headed toward Kansas City. I tried a couple of times to get this young man to talk to me, but he wouldn’t.
As we got a little closer to the city, I made my way to the nearest well-lit parking lot, pulled in, and shut off my SUV. I told the young man in the back seat to either tell me what was going on or get out. He stared at me for a few seconds; then he started to talk.
“I killed them,” he said. “I didn’t mean to, but I did.”
With that, I thought perhaps it would be better to listen to his story from outside my SUV. I got out and opened the back door slightly, but kept the door between us.
“You killed who?”
Mark told me his story. He and three of his college friends were on a camping weekend. Mark was driving when a deer ran out in front of him. He swerved to miss it, crossed the center line, and struck another car head-on. All three of Mark’s friends, as well as the young mother driving the other vehicle, were killed.
Mark was the only one wearing a seat belt. He sustained moderate injuries from which he recovered. He and the infant strapped securely into the car seat were the only survivors.
Mark told me about his friends. He talked about holding his best friend as he died. He talked about praying the young mother knew her baby was OK as she took her final breaths. As Mark told me his story, I could feel the pain, the darkness he had been living with. The guilt he felt was too much. He couldn’t live with it any longer. He came home to Kansas City, where he had grown up, to end his life.
We talked for a long time that night. Mark told me his story. I told him mine.
I told him how there were eight of us who checked into the Mayo clinic. It was a medical trial for an experimental treatment for a rare form of brain cancer. The treatment proved successful, but only for two of us. Two of us survived; six of us didn’t.
We talked about the guilt we both felt for being alive when our friends weren’t. “Why?” he asked, “Why did we survive? What is it we are supposed to do?”
When I heard Mark ask those questions; questions that were all too familiar to me, I realized for the first time I had an answer. Not just an answer for him, but an answer for me.
“Have you ever heard of the butterfly effect?” I asked him.
I explained the butterfly effect, and how a butterfly’s wings can lead to a much larger phenomenon. I explained how I saw the butterfly effect's role in creating change; in making a difference. “Change starts one person at a time, one story at a time. You’re looking for a purpose, for the reason. It’s right here in front of you, Mark. It’s what happened tonight. That’s why you’re here.”
“Tonight, Mark, you told your story. You honored the memory of your friends. Because you did that, Mark, you made a difference. That’s why we are here Mark. To tell our stories. To make a difference, one person at a time. It’s not glamorous, it’s not prestigious, and it’s not what people write books about. We’ve been called to do what most people can’t handle doing. Telling our story, honoring our friends, celebrating who they were, one person at a time.”
We talked for a long time that night. We cried together. We prayed together. We laughed together. Shortly after sunrise, he asked me one very important question. “Patrik, will you take me back to the airport? I want to go home.”
I drove Mark back to the airport. Before he got out of my vehicle he asked me, “Do you think our paths will ever cross again?” I sat there for a moment. “I don’t know. I think that depends on how well we do our jobs. If we keep telling our stories; if we keep making a difference. If we do that. Someday. Somewhere. Somehow. Yes, I think our paths will cross again.”
“Something to look forward to,” he said. With that, Mark shut the back door and started toward the airport door. He looked back, waved, and disappeared behind the airport doors.
As I left the airport, I thought about what I said to Mark. I thought about how I volunteered as a chemo partner. I thought about how I held so many hands as their bodies filled with the poison that was saving their life. How I understood the fear that came with the word “remission.” How I understood the pain they felt when that word didn’t come for a friend.
I thought about how I kept in contact with my partners after they finished chemo. How I understood the long-term side effects. How I understood the frustration of ‘chemo-brain’. How I learned to help them laugh at their own idiocy when it struck.
I thought about how many people, mostly people I barely even knew, I had given my telephone number to over the years. “Everybody wants you to be strong. But sometimes, in order to be strong, you need to vent. So, if you ever need to vent; if you ever need to just yell and scream at somebody; I don’t care what horrible words you use when you do, call me.” More than one person has taken me up on that offer. Some of them more than once.
As I thought about all of that, I realized I had been searching for my purpose for years. That whole time I was searching though, I failed to realize the one thing I learned that night talking with Mark. I was already living it.
Until next time, take care of yourself, and each other.
