My friend Mark took his own life this past summer.
There should be a stronger word than shocked to describe how it felt when I found out. I was at work, got up from my desk and just left to walk for a long while. My brain couldn’t and still can’t process it.
Mark Freedman was always so bright and cheery with me. He was smart, incisive, fun to talk to and knew this industry inside and out. He knew why things are the way they are better than most others I know. I counted Mark as a friend but he was also invaluable to me as a journalist. He was one of those “deep inside” sources who would never spill secrets about the companies he worked for but could be trusted to truthfully explain the intricacies of parts of the business I just didn’t know.
When I had a “why is this like that?” question, I turned to him often.
He was honest about the business, sometimes brutally or hilariously so, knew its limitations and had an excellent grasp on the challenges it faces. When I wanted an honest take on the industry or a specific issue, I often turned to Mark first – and he always replied with keen insight, often accompanied with some thoughts on the Raptors bench strength or Kyle Lowry’s shooting.
“One thing I can tell you about Mark is he made you feel important no matter what your titles were,” said his friend Josie Cruz-Rivera, who worked with him at Rogers. “He knew your name and what your responsibilities were. He would always tell people, ‘go see Josie’ and I wished he knew what that meant to me. In meetings, he made sure he gave credit to whoever did the job and was always humble – even if it was him who deserved the credit.
“Mark is a cherished colleague, a friend and mentor who will be missed by many but never will be forgotten by those who were fortunate enough to know him,” she added.
“I’ll always remember Mark as that unique person who knew so much about everything. From basketball to cable, from cooking to vintage television shows and video games. His brilliant mind was only matched by his generous attitude to helping people. I’m going to miss those healthy debates with him about anything and everything,” added friend Jonathan Freedman.
Mark’s official title was director, VOD and content marketing at Telus, but I got to know him first when he was at Rogers. A lot of the way television was and is packaged in Canada came out of the team he was on at Rogers, as did video on demand. He was instrumental in the push to get dynamic ads into the VOD stream, among other accomplishments.
People really liked the guy and enjoyed working – and playing – with him.
“Mark enjoyed our golf outings, although his knowledge and passion for everything television, far exceeded his golf skills—by a HUGE margin,” said friend Tony Greco of Zoomer Media. “Each time our foursome would hit the links, I would ask ‘Mark, have you got golf shoes yet, did you bring any balls, did you lose that golf glove I gave you last time out?’ We all knew the answer, and we all laughed, including Mark, as we marched onto the course to swing at air, drink some beers and to opine how much better our industry could be if only the four of us were running the show.”
This is the place in this story where I look back and must amend what I wrote – so I can instead say Mark always seemed so bright and cheery. He was not, as his friends and family have unfortunately come to realize.
Talking about depression or suicide is still very hard to do, especially for middle-aged men caught between the Baby Boomers and Millennials. No matter how progressive we may believe we are, or how in touch with our feelings we think we might be when compared to our dads and granddads, we were still raised to think and act tough on the outside, that any talk of how we might be feeling badly is a show of weakness – and men must never be or look weak.
If you’re sad, ‘suck it up and keep going, brother,’ is what we know innately. This is bad advice, I hope we’re coming to realize. Despite the assumption I’m making here, I don’t know if this is what Mark was feeling. I’m a bit older than he was, so it’s just a guess I have.
According to Statistics Canada, nearly 4,000 Canadians die by suicide each year. That’s approximately 10 per day. It’s the third-leading cause of death for men aged 40-50 (Mark was 44), behind cancer and accidents. Suicides among Canadian women are also rising.
This is a stressful business we’re in and none of us can claim to truly know the other no matter how good, or bad, the days are. We work with dozens, sometimes hundreds of people each year. Most will present as folks getting along in life just fine. But we don’t truly know the angels and demons others hold inside and it’s hard to reach out when we don’t see a problem.
So please treat yourself well. If you have suicidal thoughts, or just think you may be depressed, talk to someone. If not a friend or a spouse or a relative, reach out to the various mental health professionals in your community – or even in your workplace. Many modern workplaces offer mental health aid – and I think the stigma of how it’s weak for men to talk about their depression or sadness is beginning to show signs of abating.
It’s a stressful world but we’re truly all in this together and it really does help to talk. A sympathetic ear may be all you need to start to see there is a positive path forward.
Sadly, I don’t know what my friend Mark felt – and his friends and family are all struggling to make sense of this loss. We just miss a great guy gone too soon.
Mark is survived by his wife Robyn and their two kids Aaron and Seth, his mother Susan and sister Elyse. A celebration of life will be held by his friends in the new year.
