Ryan, Debi, and Toren Cragun's Blog

Just posting a link this time – too tired to write anything else right now:

http://obitsutah.com/memory_book.php?id=2017

This is a post I didn’t want to write…

My brother Mark, my brother just older than me in my family, passed away today.  He was 35.  That’s way too young.

He had been sick for a long time.  In fact, I’m not sure when his health started declining, but I don’t think he was the same healthy Mark since his mission to Mexico (1994-1996).  At least by the time I returned from my mission to Costa Rica (1996-1998) he was often not feeling well.  Details are sparse on my end, but from what I’ve been able to gather, his health deteriorated quite a bit over the last 4 years.  Countless surgeries, doctor visits, and treatments didn’t seem to make a difference.  Whatever was causing his ill health was never really clear.  But the affect on Mark’s body was apparent.  Lucky for the rest of us, the affect on his spirit was less noticeable…

The Mark of my childhood was vibrant, stunningly athletic, and quirky.  Mark was probably the most naturally gifted athlete I’ve ever personally known.  Without effort he could out pace nearly any competitor.  We played on the same soccer team a few times and whenever Mark was on the field, it was always in the same position and under the same pretense.  He was a lightening fast center forward who would leave the defense standing still.  All we had to do was kick the ball over the defense’s head and leave the rest to Mark’s tenacity and speed.  It was a recipe that worked more often than it didn’t.

Mark at Hind's after a soccer game; 1992

Despite not being very big, Mark was fearless and highly competitive.  I watched him tie Mitch Johnson, who must have weighed close to 50 pounds more than Mark, up in knots, laughing the entire time.  His competitive nature reminds me of another story.  I’m competitive, but I also know when to give up.  Mark never would.  We learned to water ski around the same time at Lake Powell.  I don’t remember what year, exactly, but it was in the late 1980s.  I believe Mark got up on two skis before I did, but I picked it up pretty quickly after he did.  The next summer at Lake Powell we started dropping one ski so we could slalom, then learned to start on one ski.  I picked up the technique before Mark did.  To Mark, that was unacceptable.  He was the older brother (and the much better athlete).  He tried and tried, for hours.  I still remember sitting in the “Jeanne Mae” in the channel as the sun was beginning to set while Mark attempted to slalom.  He eventually got up, but how he had any energy left by that time is beyond me.  He wouldn’t quit, especially when the odds were against him.

Every sport and every team at Morgan High School wanted Mark because of his athletic ability.  He competed at the state level in wrestling and track and was very successful, but rarely practiced.  I vaguely recall one story he told me of a race he ran at state track.  He somehow mixed up the times he was supposed to run and ended up leaving the track to get something to eat, returning just before his heat.  When he returned, someone told him he was running next.  Without warming up he ran and took second.  I’m not sure why Mark didn’t capitalize on his natural talent, but it may have been his free spirit.  In one conversation with him after he told his wrestling coach (who eventually became his father-in-law) that he no longer wanted to be on the wrestling team he told me that he just didn’t like people telling him what to do.

Perhaps him being a free spirit is what led to his quirky behavior.  There are a lot of people from Morgan (and other parts of the state of Utah, and perhaps even beyond) who are probably still traumatized from having Mark blow in their nose (if you’ve never experienced it, be glad).  I’m not sure where that particular activity originated, but there were many victims.

I'm not sure who the victim was in this photo, but I know it was from the state FBLA competition in SLC in 1992

I’m not sure whether it says more about me or more about Mark, but I can honestly say I never really understood him.  He was a remarkable conversationalist and could put people at ease nearly instantaneously.  But he was also withdrawn and loved to make people feel uncomfortable as well.  Perhaps this split personality is related to his position as the middle child (5 of 9).  He caught the tail end of the activities the older children in our family experienced (hunting with my Dad, snowmobiling, etc.) but was also often forced to do things with the younger bunch (e.g., visiting the Christmas decorations in Ogden – not on snowmobiles).

Katie, Mark, Wendy, and Josh at the Ogden Christmas decorations

I’m sure Mark would have rather hung out with the four oldest rather than the four youngest, but he was a good sport about it.  Unfortunately, I think him falling right in the middle made it awkward for him to spend time with either group.  He wasn’t as geeky as the four youngest (though, like almost all of my siblings, he had a passion for reading and was a voracious reader), but he also didn’t seem to share the interests of the four oldest.

Being the closest in age to Mark, he and I didn’t always get along.  Some of it was competition between siblings, no doubt.  But some of it was probably just Mark doing his best to put up with me, which is no easy task.  We had our fights, some ending in blows.  But most of that was worked out by the time I reached high school.  By my freshman year, everyone called me “little Cragun,” even though I was taller and heavier than Mark by my sophomore year (he could still take me and I knew that, so I didn’t egg him on).  I never feared hazing – Mark would have killed anyone who tried, and everyone knew it.  He took me under his wing at times and, while not all of his advice he offered is appropriate for this blog, I can say that it is some of the best advice I ever received.

I have a number of fun, random memories of Mark.  There was the time we almost burned the neighbor’s house down by lighting their doghouse on fire… it happened to be under the neighbor’s deck when we lit it up.  There was also the time Mark piled about 9 of us into my Dad’s Honda Accord and drove us to Park City.  I don’t remember why we were going to Park City, but I remember riding in the trunk with Tom Triplett the whole way there.  There was the jump along a dirt road Mark showed me near John Carter’s house that became a frequent lunch time activity in our shared Isuzu pickup (I still don’t think my Dad knows that’s how the windshield kept getting cracked).

There are many more stories I could tell, but I’ll end with my last good memory of my older brother.  We went to Utah to visit family in 2008 and timed it just right so we could go to Lake Powell with my family as well.  Mark wasn’t at Lake Powell the whole time, and by this time he was already quite ill and had already had a number of surgeries.  As was typically the case, all of our nieces and nephews were ecstatic when he arrived as he was always considered the favorite uncle.  As an avid hiker myself, I scaled a number of the hills around where our boat was anchored, but in the short time he was there, Mark scampered up the mountain like a goat and found a number of cool geographic features I had not found.  He organized a hike up the mountain that led to a narrow chute canyon that ended about 40 feet above the water line.

Mark shepherding all of us down the chute canyon

He was fond of activities like this, that pushed boundaries and made people uncomfortable.  I guess he and I have that in common, though I tend to prefer to do it cognitively, while he preferred to do it physically.  He insisted that everyone who worked their way down the chute canyon couldn’t turn back – they had to jump.  And with Mark’s help, jump they did.

everyone who jumped, with Mark's coaxing

While I’m not much of a believer in the idea that helping people overcome physical hurdles can help them overcome mental hurdles, I do think there is some satisfaction that is derived from such activities.  It can bolster self-esteem.  And it may even inspire.

If Mark was anything, he was inspiration for a lot of people.  His tactics may have been unorthodox, but his intentions were always sincere.

Mark Cragun, Lake Powell, August 2008

Goodbye, big brother.  You are already missed!

(Note: Feel free to share your memories of Mark in the comments.  I’ll make sure Hillari gets them.)

I’ve been so busy trying to get ready for classes and finish my summer research obligations I haven’t had a chance to post anything. Not to worry. I’ll start posting again soon.

In the meantime, here’s a photo from our cruise I forgot to post:

formal night on the cruise ship; the backdrop is supposed to be the Titanic

Toren, who did sleep on the flight from Amsterdam to Atlanta, was still on Greek time, so he woke up at 2:30 ready to play.  Since I had gotten 3 hours or so of sleep on the flight, I got up with him and let Debi sleep.  We walked around the hotel until about 4:30, when we had to get up to get ready to go back to the airport.  We made it back to the airport fine and our flight to Tampa was uneventful.  We did use our meal vouchers (courtesy of Delta) to buy a bunch of donuts, though, and gave them out to various people.  Everything seemed fine when we arrived in Tampa, until one of our bags (my bag) didn’t show up.  When I asked about it, the baggage claim guy said it was still in Amsterdam according to their records, even though I carried it through customs in Atlanta.  That didn’t seem like a good sign.  Anyway, they said they’d send it to our house when they found it.  They did finally find it, the next day, and got it to us that afternoon.  So, trip complete.

Some thoughts on cruising with a young child:

• Cruises don’t really cater to really young kids (<3).  Yes, they have highchairs and cribs, and yes the staff are friendly, but kids in diapers or pullups are not allowed in any swimming pools on the ship.  Also, there is no childcare for really young kids.  There are no babysitters you can pay to watch your kid during the day.  The one daily activity they have for kids under 3 is about 45 minutes long and requires that a parent be there.  In short, cruise ships primarily cater to the old, fat, white people who predominate, then to other adults, then to their teen+ kids, then to kids between about 4 and 12 who get some special treatment.  If you are thinking about cruising with a kid under 3, don’t expect it to be all that easy.
• During one of the excursions, someone from our ship struck up a conversation with Brent and Suzy and asked them, “Are you the ones with the baby?”  Brent and Suzy said no, but that the baby was part of their group.  This person then said, “I would never travel to Europe with a baby.  How exhausting!”  Well, there is some truth to that.  Don’t expect to do all the things you could do on a cruise when you were single. On our previous cruises, we typically would go to the nightly shows and then go out dancing. With Toren, we were lucky we got up in the morning in time for our excursions (he slept in our bed and loves to kick me and toss and turn all night). Toren was reasonably well-behaved on the excursions (less so on the last two), but whenever we had an early morning excursion, we couldn’t help but crash in the afternoon before dinner.  We showered before dinner, and then after a nearly 2 hour dinner (with three courses), it was too late (8:30) to go do anything with the kids and too early to see any shows.  So, we ended up typically just going back to our room and waiting Toren out until he fell asleep.  So, yes, it’s exhausting.  But traveling is typically exhausting anyway, and so is parenting.  So, I don’t think it would have made much of a difference if we were home or on the trip – either way, Toren is a lot of work (and a lot of fun!).
• Finally, I also feel a bit guilty. Most of the staff on the ship are people from developing countries who are working on the cruise ship because this offers them a substantial improvement in life. But, they do this at great personal sacrifice. Our primary waiter, Brenda, had a child the same as age Toren, a girl. Brenda is on the ship for 7 months at a time, then home for 2. Her husband and parents take care of her daughter while she’s away. I can’t even imagine seeing Toren just 2 months out of every 9. Likewise, our room attendant, Angelina, from Mauritius, has three kids – 8, 12, and 15. She’s on the ship 6 months, then home 2. She’s been doing this for 6 years, which means she has been gone for ¾ of her children’s lives over the last 6 years. I only feel slightly better about this when I think that this means her children will have a better financial starting point than she did, but it still breaks my heart to think about how much of her children’s lives she is missing. Brenda said she cried everyday when she first came aboard the ship because she was missing her child so much. Having Toren on the ship reminds them of the kids they have left at home. So, it made me feel guilty.

Anyway, the trip was a lot of fun.  We got to see a lot of amazing things and spend time with family, which is really the point.  Some fun trip statistics for you:

• Countries visited: 5 (France, Italy, Croatia, Greece, Holland – kind of)
• Miles traveled: 13,100 (excluding walking around locally)
• Photos taken: about 2,000, but I’ve deleted some since

I hope you enjoyed the trip report!

Between Katakalon and Venice the time changed, giving us an extra hour.  Unfortunately, I forgot to set my watch back.  So, I woke up at 5:00 thinking it was 6:00, then woke Debi up at 6:30 instead of 7:30.  Oops!  It worked out okay as we got to go the nice restaurant for breakfast one last time.  We then said goodbye to the rest of the family who had different travel arrangements home and disembarked.  Everyone else was staying onboard until 3:30 as their flights were late in the evening.  We made it to the Venice airport by 9:30 but couldn’t check in for our 2:30 flight until 2 hours before, which is some bizarre rule at that airport (maybe in Europe, generally?), so we played outside near the baggage claim for a few hours.  Since we still had all of our luggage, we pulled out some of Toren’s toys and let him play with them.  This attracted the attention of some other children waiting around, so Toren ended up making a couple of friends, an Italian girl and a British girl.

We finally headed up to check in around 12:00, but the line was already very backed up for our flight.  We got really worried that we would miss our flight, especially since traveling internationally with a lap child seems to require very complicated paperwork (it took us almost 20 minutes to check us in).  We finally made it past security with minutes to spare and made it to our plane just in time to board (at the very end of the line).  Additionally, for some reason our seats weren’t together, so Debi had to handle Toren by herself.  Meanwhile, I chatted with a nice couple from England (mostly the husband), who regaled me with a number of stories, mostly about Saint Anthony (he was a devout Catholic with a deep interest in Saint Anthony).  Toren did okay on the flight, luckily, so Debi wasn’t too upset about us sitting apart.  And the couple she sat next to were helpful and understanding.

Our connection was in Amsterdam.  We had to hurry through that airport as well as we didn’t have much time between flights.  Unfortunately, however, our flight out of Amsterdam was delayed by about an hour and a half, first because of a straggler, then because of a mechanical problem. The flight was relatively uneventful, but we didn’t get much sleep.

When we arrived in Atlanta, we were delayed pulling up to a gate as well, by about 20 minutes.  Once we disembarked, we literally ran through the airport to try to catch our connection to Tampa, but we arrived at the gate just as they sealed the door to the plane.  We were not alone.  There were about 8 of us on the flight from Amsterdam who were all trying to make the Tampa flight.  Unfortunately, there wasn’t anyone around to help us reschedule, so we ended up traipsing through the airport for about an hour trying to figure out who could help us (there was an Italian family that didn’t speak much English that we were trying to help as well).  We eventually found a ticket agent, who set us up with rooms at a nearby hotel for the night and booked us on an early flight the next morning.  We checked into the hotel around midnight and had to be back at the airport at 5:30.