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News & Record, Greensboro, N.C. Jeri Rowe/news & Record column [News & Record, Greensboro, N.C. :: ](News & Record (Greensboro, NC) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) April 20--It's Easter Sunday. Mark Newsome has slowed down. This morning, I bet he'll be in Winston-Salem with his family. His father, Dick, will have cleaned the tombstones of Mark's grandparents -- Dick's mom and dad -- and made them as white as whalebone in one of the Triad's most sacred places. God's Acre. It's a family tradition to spend every Easter at the historic Moravian cemetery. Mark's grandparents were Moravian. His dad was raised Moravian. And Mark grew up in the shadow of Moravians, singing and praying and eating breakfast at his grandparents' church a few hours before every Easter sunrise. He'll do that again today. And he'll be thankful. After nearly three decades away, Mark has come home. He appreciates that more than ever. All he has to do is hear someone like me ask about the C-scar on his bald head, and he'll remember what the doctors told him once in a hospital way west of us in Kansas. He heard he'd live only three more years. That was 13 years ago. "The C on my head?'' he says. "That stands for Christ.'' He tells me about his favorite Scriptures. Later, he tells me about one of his favorite tunes: Tim McGraw's "Live Like You Were Dying,'' a song written about his dad, Tug, the baseball star who died of brain cancer. Seems to fit. Mark has brain cancer. Still does to a certain degree. In March 2001, doctors removed a tumor the size of a baked potato from beneath his skull. They got nearly all of it. But with brain cancer, Mark knows he still has cancerous roots fingering through his brain underneath the plate in his head the size of a graham cracker. Because of that, he likes to see himself as Rambo. At least in his mind. He visualizes himself with a big machine gun blasting every bit of cancer he finds in his brain. He laughs about that because he knows that can't happen. But he knows what can happen: Help as many people with brain cancer as he can and be courageous like his favorite verse in Deuteronomy and the verses of his favorite Tim McGraw song. "You need to push the edges of life because you're only going to be here for a flick, a moment in time, and that whole theme of that song speaks to me,'' he says. "It speaks to me and a whole lot of others who have gone through cancer and faced death. Live like you're dying. Go for it, man.'' At least 650,000 people nationwide have some type of brain cancer, with another 250,000 people receiving the diagnosis every year. So, Mark started BeHeadStrong where he lived outside Kansas City. In a dozen years, his nonprofit organization has raised $500,000 to help brain-cancer patients and their caregivers with such things as medication, hotel expenses and chemotherapy. After moving back to Greensboro 20 months ago, he has restarted his nonprofit in his hometown. He calls it TriadBeHeadStrong, and it'll hold its first fundraiser Thursday. But to understand where he's going, you have to get where's he's been. Let's start with his college nickname. Bunny. Mark was fast. He ran the ball for Southeast Guilford and earned all-conference honors twice as a running back before he graduated in 1981. He wore No. 22, and he could chew up 40 yards in 4.6 seconds, juking past enough opponents to grab the attention of college scouts and earn a football scholarship. That's how it always went for Mark. He did things fast. He never slowed down. His little sister, Michelle, the youngest of three, had a name for him: "My little superhero." As a toddler, the middle kid of Pat and Dick Newsome, Mark broke his hobby horse because of so much rocking and broke a mattress because of so much jumping. His dad had to thump him in his head during many a family picture, saying "Mark, be still!'' Mark grew up in Greensboro's Forest Oaks neighborhood. He jumped his bike over ditches and kept busy in five sports -- baseball, basketball, football, swimming and tennis. Some he did at the same time, changing in his back seat as his mom drove him from competition to competition. He got good grades, was voted the "Best All Around'' his senior year at Southeast Guilford and went on at Western Carolina University to play football, run track, get an undergraduate degree in management and a master's in business administration. He took off and never really came back to his hometown. For nearly three decades, he made a world in Florida and Kansas. He got married, bought a big house and climbed up the corporate ladder of a big telecommunications company. He had 300 customers in three states and made $150,000 a year. Then, he had what he calls his James Brown moment. He was living outside Kansas City, getting ready for a presentation one night when he woke up in an ambulance. He had suffered a seizure and collapsed in his living room. "I call it James Brown on the ground,'' Mark says, laughing. "Because you've got to laugh or you'll just cry.'' Mark did. He had gained what he believed every man wanted: wealth, status, toys, friends, the love of a beautiful woman and a body that gave him the ability to compete in triathlons. But after brain cancer, he lost his job, his athleticism and eventually his marriage. At 38, he faced his own death. His parents got the news of Mark's collapse and drove all the way to Kansas -- a 12-hour trip. His mom prayed. His dad broke down. Their youngest son, their middle child, their frenetic kid known as Bunny at Western Carolina had been knocked down by something none of them could see. Mark went to a cancer hospital in Houston, and after his nine-hour surgery, he looked at his family and his friends that surrounded him and repeated another family tradition heard in almost every phone conversation. "La you, bye.'' Translation? Love you, bye. His family knew. Right then, they knew Mark would be OK. Mark is now 51, and the remnants of his brain cancer still give him trouble. He gets lost in his hometown, and he can't calculate or do much math like he once did. He also can't throw a dart or a horseshoe or a bocce ball because his strong right arm, the one that hurled a fast ball, is strong no more. He has what he calls a "girly arm.'' And he doesn't have his signature energy anymore. He tires easily, takes medicine to control his seizures and his hyperthyroidism, and pays his bills and the mortgage of his town house he owns through the long-term disability he receives through his former company. But he's home. In August 2012, he moved back to Greensboro to be closer to family. He's no longer a plane ride away. He's a mile from his folks and a short drive from his brother and sister. And on Thursday, he'll walk into Mack and Mack and start another chapter of his nonprofit BeHeadStrong. He wants to help people like him. He tells me -- he tells everybody -- "I work for God.'' His mom has an idea why. "It's something inside him that tells him he needs to do this,'' says Pat, 71. "His energy has waned a bit, but I sense in him this idea that 'I may not be able to do this if I wait.'?'' His brain cancer has made his religious faith stronger and made him more emotionally mature. He says he now knows what he needs to do. Like today. On Easter morning. At God's Acre. Mark will continue a family tradition. That's important. Contact Jeri Rowe at (336) 373-7374. ___ (c)2014 the News & Record (Greensboro, N.C.) Visit the News & Record (Greensboro, N.C.) at www.news-record.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |