That’s why I don’t sleep late. On Saturdays I usually grab whatever drawing project I am working on and walk to the coffee shop where I work until noon or so. It’s a great way to meet people and hand out business cards, but today was different.

I was actually there before they opened, so when they did open I got my favorite seat by the window where the light is particularly good on overcast days. Since this is apparently monsoon season (seriously, Atlanta has gotten about 19 feet of rain in the past two weeks) the light was perfect. Several people walked by and commented, asked for business cards, chatted for a while, and so on. After I had been there a couple of hours I could feel a presence behind me. This is sort of normal, as lots of people think they are bothering me if they watch me work so they hover behind me as if that is somehow not distracting. Hey, if it really bothered me I’d work in my living room.

Finally a voice said “excuse me”, and I looked up at a rather large and intimidating man. The kind of guy who you can tell has extensive training in some form of kicking asses and/or taking names. It was the tears welling up in his eyes that threw me off. All he said was “I was a friend of Mark’s. I don’t know why you are doing this, but thank you.”

This is the drawing I was working on.

Mark Cross

Mark was a police officer in Atlanta’s Red Dog Unit. They are pretty much the ninjas of the force from what I have read and seen, and their mission in life is to put drug dealers in jail. On April 23rd of this year, Mark and his partner stopped a suspicious car in southwest Atlanta, and as Mark approached the car, the driver shot him in the head, killing him. Mark’s partner was also hit, but a third officer managed to shoot and kill both occupants of the car.

Cross was 31 years old when he was killed, and has a wife and two kids, 2 and 4 years old. They now have to grow up without a father because some stupid thug couldn’t control himself. The kid was 19 years old and had recently been released from prison after being convicted of manslaughter at the ripe age of 14. I’d go into a flurry about how enraged I was at his even being allowed another chance at freedom and how the local media (in their textbook practice of defending the rights and honor of worthless douchebags everywhere) made it sound like this poor kid was needlessly attacked by two big mean cops, but that would be to humanize him, which is far more than he deserves. Let’s just say his end was justified.

I never met Mark. In fact, all I know of him is what I heard briefly on the news when it all happened, a couple of things I dug up on line, and what a few people have told me about him. I met his partner about a month ago at a restaurant where I was meeting with some friends/business associates. A big cop with muscles growing out of his muscles and guns with other guns attached to them came up and spoke to my friend Scott for a few minutes. Apparently they knew each other, but Scott’s one of those people who knows everybody. I overheard something about a fundraiser…would your company like to sponsor…silent auction…help his family out…

After Officer Gunter left, I had an uncharacteristic flash of good will and told Scott I wanted to draw a portrait of Mark to give to his family and offer another at the auction in August to help raise some bucks for his kids. The next day I had a few photos to work from, and thus began an exercise that has had me thinking pretty deeply for several weeks.

I usually feel like I know someone on some level after drawing a picture of them just because I have to stare at their face for hours on end. Sometimes it is a loved one who has passed on, and I wonder what they were like, what their voice may have sounded like, and things like that. I am always humbled when someone sees the final product and has an emotional reaction, but this one is different. This guy was two years younger than I am. He was married, had kids, and the look on his face in this picture tells you exactly what his heaven is.

I wondered if he kissed his wife goodbye when he left for work that day, and vowed once again never to miss an opportunity to tell someone I love them.

Several times while working on this portrait, I had to stop due to the blurriness caused when water comes out of my eyes. Today at the coffee shop was no different. I stood to shake the guy’s hand and introduced myself (promptly forgetting his name, as I do so well), telling him why I was doing this, and then his wife walked up and saw it. She got a little teary, and I could barely squeak out the words “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the work you guys do.”

In those few moments it became much more to me than graphite on paper. I have honestly never thought of this kind of thing as more than a bunch of well-placed lines on wood pulp. I know it means more than that to whomever I am drawing it for, but those emotions don’t usually bridge whatever professional detachment I have with them.

Something about a complete stranger approaching another complete stranger who is drawing a picture of a complete stranger…something that simple being the binding element…changed my life in a small but significant way. I don’t really know how to explain it, but I’m sure glad I didn’t sleep in this morning.

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