Mark’s sacrifice will live on and touch all forever

Lou Marzeles
Editor and Publisher

     It was a day none around here will forget.
     Mark Coleman—husband, father, soldier, hero, fallen guardian of this country’s freedom—came home to rest in an outpouring of love and support that deeply moved both the community and Mark’s family.
     The comments after the service among the hundreds of people who attended Mark’s funeral Saturday were unanimous: it was a profound honor to be able to participate in the service, to reflect on the quality of one precious human life, one born and raised in this very community.
     That one precious human surrendered his life for the sake of all the other precious human lives still living in this community. And in this country.
     He gave his life for the business owners and the welfare recipients. He gave it for the teachers and the students. He gave it for the preachers and the congregants. He gave it for the social workers, for those paying for groceries with food stamps, for the retired, for the newly arrived, for every living person in this region and in this country who has the freedom to choose what to make of his or her life. He gave it for a country that provides such freedom and to protect it from powers that decry our freedoms even as they provide so few to their own people.
     He gave it with love for what he did, with love for those he left behind.
     He ennobles us with his selfless sacrifice, calling up that within us which aspires to be worthy of such a full measure of devotion. We want to be better people because of how good Mark Coleman was and because of what he did for us. In that way, he has touched every life here in a way that will never be fully reckoned and that will always be profoundly appreciated.