Mark David Ramsay

Mark David Ramsay. Father. Husband. Blue Jays Fan. A hoot. Born September 24, 1987 in Summerside, P.E.I.; Died May 29, 2023, in Dartmouth, N.S., of cancer caused by Familial Adenomatous Polyposis; aged 35.

At the age of five, Mark David Ramsay announced to a full school auditorium that he wished to be a clown when he grew up. And for the rest of his life, that is what he was to his family and friends. More clown than the paramedic or aircraft inspector professions he once occupied.

The closest Mark ever got to professional clowning was that one Nova Scotia summer spent with friends attending parades and fairs dressed head-to-toe as "Daisy", a cow mascot for a local dairy. Of the friends, Mark was chosen because only he fit the costume's high heels. A true Cinderella story.

Mark grew up in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, where a childhood spent with life-threatening asthma, led to teenage years filled with friends and reading (only insofar as the reading related to hockey or was displayed on a video game loading screen). It was during these teenage years that prominent lumps first appeared on Mark's forehead and jaw, facial abnormalities that would have caused social introversion for many but not for Mark; he was always comfortable in his own skin.

Mark attended Saint Mary's University for long enough that most people would have earned a degree, perhaps even two. Mark however made lifelong friends, ate lots of pizza and developed an intimate knowledge of his local sports bar. Such was his love of pizza that when he required medical care as a "student", he provided the number for his favourite pizza parlour as his emergency contact, it being the only phone number committed to his memory. Years later, Mark would find himself in that same emergency room with his future bride, Meghan MacAulay, after she broke her wrist on their first date by failing to successfully skate one lap of the Halifax Commons oval.

After Saint Mary's, Mark followed university friends to Ottawa where he lived for eighteen months, a time spent exploring the city on bicycle and half-heartedly searching for but never securing employment. Mark's patrons, his parents, appreciated those periodic updates from Auntie Beth whenever she summoned sufficient courage to enter Mark's neighbourhood.

When the patronage ran out in 2013, Mark returned to Halifax where he studied to be a paramedic, meeting Meghan shortly thereafter. Upon meeting his future father-in-law for the first time, Mark quipped that the older man's medical problems were related to "too much dust in his blood." Perhaps questioning Mark's medical (and other) judgment, his father-in-law offered employment in the family business of non-destructive testing, a career which brought Mark satisfaction and finally a steady paycheque.

Mark and Meghan married in 2019 and only child Lucas was born in 2022. In a hell of a way to get out of diaper duty, Mark was diagnosed with advanced cancer weeks after Lucas's birth. Despite a difficult final year, Mark was an involved father and immensely proud of Lucas. He introduced Lucas to his favourite music, handed over his beloved childhood teddy bear "bobo", and made sure Lucas had aqua sweatpants to match his own, pants that were long the source of family ridicule. In his final months, Mark assigned his friends various skills to teach Lucas after his death; Meghan will take no part in the child's skating tutelage.

Mark was reliable in that sort of way that if he told you he was coming Saturday morning, he would be there; but perhaps not until Sunday. He could also be sentimental but only in his own crudely humorous way: in his final month, he told his mother that if reincarnation was in his future, he would "like to come back as a large crow and shit on his loved ones' decks."

Mark's final days were spent at home with family and friends, reminiscing about family cottages, childhood haircuts selected from hockey cards and the smell of bacon and eggs frying on a Saturday morning. Mark rarely missed a televised Blue Jays game and enjoyed watching one final spring season with all the excited hope that a fresh start brings, dying before the inevitable summer slump that all devoted fans know to expect.

While Mark died before he had enough fun, gossip and Blue Jays games, his family and friends take solace in their memories of Mark's near constant humour and his physical resemblance to Lucas, particularly their shared cheeks, wide smiles and ever twinkling eyes.

Written by Michael Ramsay. Michael Ramsay is Mark's older, less funny brother.

An abridged version of this obituary was first published in the Globe and Mail Lives Lived column January 29, 2024 (online) and January 30, 2024 (print).