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[01 May 2009|12:57pm] |
Mark Lee Rossini was born March 20th 1974 to Mary and Richard Rossini in Madison Wisconsin. He was a perfectly normal little boy. He wanted to grow up and be a cop or a real cowboy or President and at one point in time wanted to be a war hero like his Dad who lost the lower part of his right arm. He was normally ambitious playing with his friends in their suburban neighborhood. At the age of 12 Mark got his first camera for Christmas. It was a mini spy camera (he was going through a James Bond phase) and it set his professional life in motion. The tiny spy camera with its film that had to me mailed out and was impossible to buy was the start of it all; from then on Mark knew he wanted to take picture for the rest of his life.
He took pictures for the High School paper and for the year book. He learned to develop his own pictures in art class and was soon to be found either out with his camera or in the dark room. His friends were normal for art kids; they liked art, and most of them liked the same music. Mark didn’t really have a girlfriend in school but he did take Jeanie a friend who he knew had a crush on him to prom. Unlike most of his art friends Mark was actually going to art school.
It was University of Wisconsin- Madison that gave him the position based on his portfolio and grades. Money was tight so Mark lived at home and got a job in a camera repair shop where he thankfully learned to fix his own camera as well as many others. College was a great time for Mark he had friend even joined a band though they never played more than a few back yard frat parties and in basements. Over all it was a brilliant time learning to take better pictures and really just messing around.
Mark met Heather Tyler in black and white II. She was blond with green eyes and always had sunburned cheeks. She was a person who could make the shy Mark look up from the enlarger and smile when she spoke. She was always saying or doing something crazy. She wore headphones in the darkroom and would dance around as she worked. Their courtship started over egg salad sandwiches. Mark always every single day brought an egg salad sandwich to class that he would try to discretely munch on in lecture. One day she sat down right next to him and just snatched the second half of the sandwich. All she said was egg salad was her favorite too as the reason for taking it. All this got was a big smile from Mark. The next class he didn’t bring one sandwich but two. Never before had deli sandwiches been romantic.
Mark and Heather dated all though school only having one breakup when she went on a summer long road trip to California with friends. She wanted Mark to come but he had to stay and work. The short breakup was over him not bucking his job to go with her. Upon her return they got back together. They did each see other people at the time but it never mattered. They both graduated in 1994 with B.A.’s in Art. After graduation they started working. Heather did portraits in her usual beautifully person style. Mark continued to work at the camera shop doing repairs till the elderly owner passed away. Mark and Heather worked as a team then doing weddings and family sittings. They did well enough to save up for a house. Once they had the house Mark knew what he had to do. It was impossible to surprise Heather she had always been a snooper. She found the engagement ring before Mark even had a chance to ask. She came out of the bedroom one day holding the box and said yes. It still amuses him that he never really asked her to marry him.
With a few year of marriage under their belt Mark and Heather went out on a limb. Since the closing of the shop Mark had worked in before there was no place to get quality photography supplies or have specialty printing and framing done. To top it off the University was charging photography students an arm and a leg to buy their supplies through the bookstore. So it came about that Heather and Mark would open their own store. ‘A Thousand Words’ was born. Mark never really liked the name but Heather insisted. The store did surprisingly well with Mark’s repair skills and Heather’s charm they were actually making good money, enough money to invest in adding a real studio to the store. My 1999 their shop was considered a fixture in the university art community.
On May 9th, 2000 Sam Rossini was added to the family. A beautiful baby boy that had Mark’s smile and his mothers’ fair hair and skin. It’s a funny thing being the child of photographers, poor Sam was photographed more than most kids. His pictures weren’t the usual ‘baby’s first yawn’ kind of things but beautiful shots of mother and son or father and son. After Sam’s first birthday things seemed a bit funny. Sam wasn’t responding to noise like most babies would. Horns or shouts didn’t wake him from naps but stomps and door slams sent him wailing like ever other baby. The facts mounted up and it became clear after many, many tests Sam was born profoundly deaf.
In January of 2002 Sam received a cochlear implant. The implant was designed to give Sam a sense of sound and tune in to speech allowing for him to hear voices and some day harness his own voice. All of this was a lot of stress on Mark and Heather. It didn’t seem like more than stress when heather started to lose weight and seem ill. Mark thought she was just stressed and upset much like him. Having a marriage, a business and a son let alone a deaf son was a lot to handle for anyone. It became clear in April of 2002 that it wasn’t just stress eating at Heather.
Breast cancer ran in her family and had a history of early onset. So then it started the chemo, the radiation two years of sickness and pain. Two years of seeing his wife barely able to get out of bed some days, two years of seeing her barely able to do what she loved. On November 3rd, 2004 Heather had a mastectomy her right breast being removed and with it they thought the cancer. Seven months went by, seven months of nothing, no cancer just a family, just going to sign language class to learn how to help Sam learn to use his implant and how to communicate with him. June 2005, seven months after the surgery, it was back, back and wrapped all around and through her body. Another six months of treatments that made her even weaker and it was no help. Less than a year later on January 25th, 2006 Heather was dead.
Though it all Mark was… well quiet. He had always been quiet but people knew he was suffering, silently trying to do the right thing. He managed to get the family into a program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison audiology program. The other participating parents were a support for him as were the students. The quiet artistic young man was now the quiet Dad with the sad eyes and occasionally brilliant smile usually brought about by his son.
That spring to help pay off the bills Mark sold the house he and Heather had worked hard to pay off. The money from the house settled most of the medical bills left from Heather’s treatments. Mark and Sam moved into a smaller place in the Sub-Division Sun Prairie. They got a 2 bedroom place and did well with the smaller space.
It took mark awhile to adjust to life without his wife. It wasn't until 2008 that he really started to move on with his life. he had given up everything when Heather died, a way of punishing himself denying any kind of happy life he could have had. With a fair amount of therapy and several opportunities he was slowly moving on. His camera shop doing well with the introduction of digital equipment and a part time teaching position with the local public high school as well as voluntary teaching at Sam's school for the deaf. Mark even went so far as to hire a real manager for the store who was there when he wasn't. It was nice trying not to juggle it all for a change.
Since mark got more involved with his own life Sam had taken the example set by his father joining a local soccer team and swim team (bother of which Mark also helps with). They are two quite busy guys when it comes down to it but life is good and they're getting over what Mark hopes to be the only traumatic event in their life.
-still wears his wedding ring.
-uses some ASL when he speaks in general conversation even with non-deaf people.
-likes to cook though he rarely does.
-favorite food is an egg salad sandwich.
-is a certified life guard. (Sam likes to swim so he wanted to be able to take care of him since most people just shout at kids in pools.)
-loves to have a beer every now and then.
-keeps two boxes of Heather’s things in his closet.
-hates the rise of digital cameras even if they have made his store more successful.
-his favorite photo ever is of himself and Sam. It was taken by Heather three months before she passed away.
-considered shy and quiet by most people.
-considers his eyes his most attractive feature. Others site his smile as the best.
-Dating is slowly becoming something he would consider but is not in the front of his mind.
-Often falls asleep on the couch, at the table or sitting watching Sam in his room.
-Hates sleeping alone but still has trouble imagining sleeping with someone other than his wife.
-Heather used to call him “Mark-lee” running his names together like Big Bird’s pet Barkley.
-Is completely overjoyed when Sam says new words and phrases. His spoken language is quite good for his age.
-Thinks he cries more than most Dads and fears Sam will think he is weak.
-Is close with his Parents who live 20 mins away.
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