Help us honor Mark Crichton

The most meaningful and beautiful part of belonging to a community is seeing it rally to help when bad things happen to good people. And our community is needed more than ever right now to support Masha Gurevich Crichton and her daughters. Last week, her beloved husband and their devoted father Mark Crichton passed away unexpectedly at age 45 from a brain aneurysm. This seismic shock has devastated his family, his co-workers and his friends – not to mention acquaintances and even strangers who now hug their loved ones a little closer at this reminder of the fragility of life and the capricious cruelty of a way-too-soon death. But even in this most tragic of times, the Crichtons continue to think of how to make the world better: a generous man in life, Mark is generous again in death, saving multiple lives through the donation of his liver, kidneys, pancreas and heart. Such selfless giving is a call to generosity for all of us.

 

While the emotional losses of Mark’s passing are catastrophic- for Masha, the love of her life, her best friend, soulmate and partner; for Sophie (10) and Maeve (5), their most loved, involved, active, doting father – the practical ones are no less weighty: the unforeseen expenses of dying, the significant loss of income that seemed safely expected for the next 20+ years, the too-shallow college funds, even the abandonment of a much-anticipated January 2022 family trip to Disney World.

 

I know many of you have wondered how to help; hopefully this GoFundMe gives you an outlet, knowing you are leaning in to honor Mark by helping his family with a little grant to the college fund, a small contribution to the funeral expenses, a modest gift to enable a new experience or family trip to remind Masha and the girls in beautiful ways that life does go on and it will be okay in time.

 

Thank you for being part of our community.