Dappled sunlight spilled upon the forested trail where we ran, and I felt elation seeing Dr. Mark Crooks pulling ahead. Though disabled with a single lung, he could trounce me on the trail. As his wide shoulders and a dark mane of wavy hair shape-shifted into elm tree shadows , I reflected upon self-empowered living that he embodied.
He was a proud man who had learned too much about cancer, pain, and rehabilitation. When we jogged that spring day, he had already survived cancer for fifty-five years, battling nerve, thyroid, and lung cancers. He would face prostate and liver cancers before it would be over.
Cancer imposed egregious injustices upon an athlete and former Marine, who had earned a doctoral degree in exercise physiology and had dedicated many years to inspiring and teaching stricken men how to recover from heart attacks. Mark’s first mitochondrial mutation had followed a head-and-neck X-ray in infancy: an untested therapy unwisely deployed by a physician to fight a sinus infection. Then a sarcoma appeared on his neck at age eight.
But I knew his mind well after three decades of friendship. He wasn’t thinking about the injustice of metastatic disease. He was thinking about a beautiful day—fresh air, budding trees, and his daily mastery over inertia. He wasn’t trying to intimidate me with superior conditioning either. Mark just ran far and away in the manner he chose to spend part of each day. His only unbeatable competitor was the nemesis lurking within since childhood. Early immersion in mortality propelled his life course and had given him the uncommon determination to fight evil with science, experimentation, and risk-taking.
Most lives cannot be summed up by a single incident; rather, most human stories are collections of actions and reactions, an amalgam becoming a narrative, of plots and subplots spanning decades. This narrative was also true for Mark’s story, but in one oddly defining moment, he leaped from the apex of a bridge crossing a dangerous river, plunging ten stories and landing in nine feet of coffee-colored water.
As he launched into the void, an eighteen-wheeler blasted by him. Wind draft pushed his torso forward, introducing the possibility that he would land imperfectly and break his back. Then in midair, he mounted an invisible bicycle and pedaled for the finish. His body became vertical within a free-fall reaching sixty-three miles per hour, and he slipped splash-less into murky currents. Seconds later he exploded through the surface, arms extended in Olympic victory.
Jumping from a bridge into a river did not define Mark, but that single courageous act of determination illuminated his incandescent spirit while elaborating his message: humans can achieve greater wellness by taking calculated risks.
The Power of Positive Risk Taking
His risks were bold and brash; the doctor became his experiments. He did not advocate for mere mortals to follow in his jump stream. He saw risk as relative: one man’s Arctic Circle trek is another man’s casual day hike; one woman’s skydiving free-fall is another woman’s tethered zip-line. Risk lies more in the heart of the actor than in the act itself.
Endorphins are a gift for taking risks: opiate pretenders that can reduce pain and create well-being, and, according to some authorities, become the biochemicals of longevity. Those same neurotransmitters had also molded an image of contentment that I witnessed in a super-athletic, one-lung man leaving me to follow his footprints in the damp loam of a Kansas running trail.
Whether swimming 375 miles nonstop in the frigid Missouri River from Kansas City to St. Louis for five grueling days or scaling the exterior of the tallest skyscraper in the Midwest, Mark commanded intense focus with each feat. He pushed himself forward with wisdom articulated by Friedrich Nietzsche, the 19th-century existentialist: “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” That which did not kill Mark made him stronger, and he gained strength with leaps, dives, and near-misses.
Following our final run together, Mark shared his thoughts about aging, disease and decline, an unholy triumvirate that had visited him much too young when compared with most of his peers.
“I still have a warrior mentality,” he said. “I’m a fighter. My whole life has been about overcoming things. Adopting fitness as a way of life and part of your daily regimen will keep you more mentally stable. I still feel that the best of my life is yet to come. I have certain optimism because I don’t realize the limitations that most sixty-three-year-old men have.”
His hourglass emptied two years later within the solitude of the Kansas City Hospice. Even then he pushed an intravenous cart around the corridors for glorious minutes of independent movement. Though death was at his doorstep, he still defied mortal inevitability, a diminished man but a noble spirit unwilling to submit until left no further options. Maggie Callanan, a wise and tenured hospice nurse and coauthor of Final Gifts, acknowledges the possibilities of this terminal patient’s elaborated final months, weeks, and days: “Instead of a last-gasp sprint, death can be a marathon.”
Mark Crooks, PhD, died on July 8, 2010. He finished life on his terms. He prevailed for decades over disease, depression, and disinterest. He found satisfying self-expression through running shoes and countless T-shirts drenched with sweat. And he defied aging, not to deny the inevitable but to thwart its pace, a warrior to the end.
Mark showed me another way to negotiate suffering. He personified one of the “beautiful people” described by hospice pioneer, Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross: “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of those depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”
Brent Green has written a biographical novel about Dr. Mark Crooks, which can be previewed on a dedicated memorial website. This article is an excerpt from Brent’s most recent book, Questions of the Spirit: the Quest for Understanding at a Time of Loss.