A local family wants their son to be remembered for the loyal, big-hearted young man he was – not for the disease that ended his life one year ago today.
Mark Hague graduated from Burnaby North Secondary in 2009.
He was a confident guy and a loyal friend, brother and son.
A natural-born leader, he had won a leadership award at Holy Cross Elementary in Grade 7 and later took on a part-time job teaching ice-skating lessons to kids for the City of Burnaby.
As an athlete, playing rep soccer, minor ice hockey and minor lacrosse, he always wore either a captain’s C or an assistant captain’s A on his chest.
He was a leader among his friends as well.
“His friends really looked up to him,” his mom Marcella said. “If there was ever a problem, he was the go-to guy.”
That’s just the way Mark was, she said.
“Some kids are just more confident than others, and he was just one of them.”
Before Mark died, however, that confidence was to be shattered almost beyond recognition in a battle against drug addiction – a struggle that ended in a fatal overdose one year ago today.
“That wasn’t Mark,” Marcella said, her tears coming suddenly.
“It’s a tragedy. It’s a horrible tragedy. That kid had so much going on for him, but the disease strangled him. He told me, ‘Mom, I hate my life.’ He hated that. And he worked the program. He tried so hard.”
Her son’s descent into addiction took off quickly after graduation.
He spent time in treatment but relapsed often.
“He said, ‘I hate that I can’t be normal,’” Marcella said.
On her journey to make sense of her son’s death, she has learned addiction is no respecter of persons.
“Addiction is a disease, and it can rob anybody, from any walk of life,” she said.
But that hasn’t made her family’s loss any less devastating.
“I just get up and do my thing, put one foot in front of the other,” Marcella said. “I took a lot of walks at the beginning. I cried a lot. I have another son, so he needs me, even though he’s 25. My husband I think needs me more.”
A couple months ago, as part of her road to healing, Marcella’s psychiatrist suggested she find some way to remember the good in her lost son’s life.
She decided on a bursary – not an athletic bursary, as some teachers at Mark’s alma mater would have expected, but a leadership bursary.
She was inspired by something she remembered her son’s mentorship teacher saying years ago.
“I remember Mr. Thiessen saying to me in my parent-teacher interview that Mark was the highlight of the mentorship program. I’ll never forget that,” Marcella said.
Scott Thiessen remembers Mark well.
“He was one that looked like he wasn’t always paying attention,” he said, “but when it came time to do something, he was a lead-from-the-front kind of guy.”
Mark became Thiessen’s troubleshooter during tutorial days, when senior leadership students take on classes of Grade 8s and 9s for tutorial sessions.
If other leadership students were having trouble, Thiessen would send in Mark.
“After the first couple times, the people he was working with said, ‘Mark is amazing.’ He learned everybody’s name the first day. He was stern but he was kind to everybody,” Thiessen said.
That’s the Mark his family wants the world to remember when the Mark Hague Memorial Bursary is handed out to a graduating mentorship student at Burnaby North starting this year.
“He was a leader his whole life,” Marcella said, “and I want his memory to live on that way.”
To contribute to Mark’s bursary, contact the school at 604-664-8550.
