Pedaling through Grief
Mark was on the final day of a solo cross-country bike journey in memory of his brother, Chris ’85. After cruising through a busy downtown Astoria, Oregon, Mark was making his way to the Astoria Riverwalk along the sparkling Columbia River. With just eight miles to reach the Pacific Ocean and be reunited with family and friends, his tire caught on a set of trolley tracks, hurtling him and his bike into the air.
Fortunately for Mark, he had taken a piece of Chris with him on his once-in-a-lifetime ride: his brother’s red Bontrager helmet.
“It took over 4,000 miles, but my brother’s helmet saved me when my head slammed against the ground,” Mark says. “It was going to be retired after this trip, so it’s only fitting it got banged up finishing the job.”
Mark and Chris, both bicyclists, had talked about biking different parts of the country together. Those plans came to a halt when Mark received an unexpected phone call on April 1, 2021.
Chris had died of a heart attack just after completing a mountain bike ride in Arizona. He was 57.
“I was home alone at that time when Chris’ wife called me,” Mark remembered. “I was completely devastated and almost in disbelief.”
He clearly recalls certain details of the following days while others have faded into the background. He called his wife, Margot, and his close friend and Episcopal priest, the Rev. Peter Walsh, to help him process the news before driving from his home in Connecticut to New Jersey to be with his brother’s stunned family.
Assistant Professor of Psychology John Monopoli says that grief proceeds in stages.
“In the immediate aftermath — once we pay our respects and go our separate ways — it can feel like you’re sick. It can be hard to focus,” he explains. “With time, we learn a new normal. We don’t go back to normal or ‘get over it’ — we just reach a new normal. That’s OK.”
It’s true, Mark had never experienced the loss of a brother before. But Chris’ death was not Mark’s first encounter with grief, nor would it be his last.
Brothers and best friends
Mark and Chris were the only children born to their parents. They spent their early childhood in Minnesota before their father, known fondly as “Big Thor,” moved the family to New Jersey for a professional opportunity in New York City.
New Jersey was a far cry, literally and culturally, from the Midwest, but the Thorsheim family discovered a little enclave of Minnesota natives. And every summer, these families would travel back to Minnesota. One particular summer, members of three families packed into their friends’ green Chrysler New Yorker — five adults, four kids and a dog — and returned to the land of 10,000 lakes.
“Chris was the classic big brother — mischievous, loved to torment me,” Mark says. “We were lucky because we shared so many experiences and knew everything about each other. We navigated our parents being divorced. We left no stone unturned.”
After high school, Mark followed Chris to Susquehanna University. Both were finance majors. Both played on the men’s soccer team.
“Chris picked Susquehanna and loved it and thrived there. He was all in on the experience and so it was fun for me to join him when I was a freshman and he was a senior,” Mark says. “Chris had a presence about him that was special — he had this infectious ability to draw people in and he would make everything so fun. He was my best friend.”
Over the last several years, Mark has become well acquainted with grief. The year before he lost his brother, their mother died. Two years after Chris’ death, Mark paid his final respects to his father. Of the New Jersey–Minnesota crew that Mark has such fond memories of traveling with, only two survive, including one of the other parents and him.
“I’m the last man standing,” he says with a bittersweet chuckle, but there is an acknowledgement that being the “last survivor” can be a lonely feeling, one he admits he wrestles with.
“With our parents and siblings, we have a trove of memories that only truly resonate within the family,” he says. “I’m grateful for my own family and that I have a close connection to my wife’s family, but ultimately that history can only be relived with my parents and Chris.”
Thor Tour
Mark would have been with Chris on his final ride in Arizona, but a torn rotator cuff sidelined him. The brothers had talked about someday biking across the country together.
“Chris lived by the phrase ‘carpe diem’ and instilled it in me,” says Mark. After Chris died, time seemed of the essence. Mark underwent a thorough physical, which revealed a familial predilection for plaque buildup. He got a statin prescription and a hip replacement and started planning.
For this, he went to fellow Susquehanna alumnus Larry Walsh ’84, who completed the grueling, 4,200-mile TransAmerica Bicycle Race in 2019.
“Larry was invaluable, he was really great to give me some time to pick his brain on what worked and what didn’t work and the mentality you need to do something like this,” Mark says. Walsh has blogged and written extensively about his cycling adventures, which prompted Mark to do the same. His blog, Thor Tour (thortour.org), chronicled every day of his 61-day journey from Connecticut to Oregon.
For four months after his hip replacement, Mark focused on getting in shape, but he also planned a route that wouldn’t push him into unsafe conditions, limiting his peak elevation to under 9,000 feet. He planned stays with friends and family, and in hotels and inns to give himself time to rest.
On June 25, Mark set off from the Connecticut coast with a bang — literally. His back tire blew up.
“Big bro Chris absolutely pranking me from above,” Mark jokes.
It was the first of many serendipitous moments he encountered as he cycled though the hills of Pennsylvania, the cornfields of Iowa, the badlands of North Dakota and the canyons of Montana. Sometimes it was as simple as feeling Chris’ spirit urging him onward during a particularly tough ride or making it to the end of a ride before a summer thunderstorm hit.
“The trip was pretty mystical,” Mark recalls, “with moments of complete clarity that Chris was present in many different ways.”
His most emotional moment occurred at Assumption Abbey, a monastery in Richardton, North Dakota, where Mark enjoyed dinner with the resident Benedictine monks and stayed the night.
“The next morning, I got up super early and the sun was coming up. It was a perfect day, so I went to the bluff to take in the incredible view that stretched for miles when one of the brothers walked out,” Mark remembers. “He said, ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ I was startled because I didn’t know he was there. He looked at me and said, ‘I’m Brother Christopher.’”
As Mark pedaled away, he says the dam broke.
“I was crying with happiness,” he says. “My whole trip was an extended way to stay close to Chris. I just know I sense Chris when he’s near and receive messages all the time.”
A hidden gift
Mark’s long hours on the road — about 80 miles a day over 50 riding days — gave him an incredible opportunity to grieve his lost loved ones and decide how he was going to move forward with his life.
Monopoli adds that when we start to adjust to a “new normal” after losing a loved one, we find a way that feels meaningful to us to honor who has passed. For Mark, it was the Thor Tour. Now that he completed it, he realizes his connection to Chris is still going strong.
“I’ve had to shift my ‘outside’ relationship with him from when he was living to an ‘inside’ relationship that we can continue to build and develop,” Mark says. “It can be painful, but that pain reminds me of how much I loved him and helps me stay close to him.”
Perhaps the greatest surprise for Mark has been discovering that grief, when embraced, can be a friend.
“I have learned there is a hidden gift in grief,” he adds. “It keeps me close to Chris and serves as a powerful agent to stay connected to those I’ve lost.”
Bonds of Brotherhood
Mark Thorsheim and his late brother, Chris, were alike in many respects, but as students at Susquehanna University in the 1980s, they diverged in one notable way: Mark’s involvement in Greek life.
Mark was a member of Lamda Chi Alpha. More than 30 years after his graduation from SU, he was approached by a parishioner at his church about joining the board of Career Resources Inc., Connecticut’s leading workforce development agency. Coincidentally, and unbeknownst to Mark at the time, CRI is led by Susquehanna alum and fellow Lambda Chi Alpha brother, Scott Wilderman ’86. Alum Michael Finn ’86, another member of their fraternity, also sits on the organization’s board.
“I knew it was meant to be,” Mark says of his service to CRI. “It’s an amazing agency in the workforce development area and huge partner to the state of Connecticut. Many of our clients are returning citizens who have been incarcerated and need to get a jumpstart on their lives.”
Founded in 1995, CRI serves communities across Connecticut with a comprehensive array of workforce development programs to support youth and adults, many with significant barriers to employment, in obtaining the skills needed to enter the workforce and build a career pathway to economic self-sufficiency and to successfully reintegrate into their communities.
“As an investment banker, I’ve worked with hundreds of entrepreneurial organizations over my career. Scott’s leadership of CRI is one of the most impressive stories I’ve encountered,” says Mark. “He has built a tremendous team, grown annual revenue over 15 times and established one of the most reputable nonprofits in the state. Scott is highly regarded by a wide range of government, corporate and community leaders with whom CRI has built relationships — but it’s his ability to bring true professionalism together with sincere compassion for every individual we employ and serve, which makes him so special and so admired.”
Mark has served as a board member since 2020, so his brother was aware of his work with and dedication to the organization. He established the Thor Tour to raise money for CRI because he knew his trip needed a meaningful purpose. Mark’s initial goal was to raise $25,000 in critical operating funds for CRI through his cross-country bike ride, which he pledged to match. To date, Mark has raised over $150,000.
“I’ve run a nonprofit for over 25 years and always had board members go the extra mile, but never 4,000 miles,” Wilderman says. “Mark needed to do this trip to fulfill a promise to his brother, and I am glad that he took CRI along for the ride.”
CRI’s workforce development programs (careerresources.org) help youth and adults reintegrate into society after protracted periods of incarceration. “Funding is always a challenge for nonprofits, especially when you are trying to help ex-offenders, or as we call them, returning citizens,” explains Wilderman. “The funds that Mark raised will support these men and women with clothing, housing, job training, transportation and a variety of support often not covered by grants.”
Mark and Wilderman marveled at how life has brought them back into each other’s orbits more than 30 years after they were students at Susquehanna. Although they were fraternity brothers, both admit they didn’t know each other well as students.
“Connecting with Mark and Mike after so many years and having them serve on my board is a true testament that relationships forged on campus not only endure the tests of time but can also thrive later in life,” Wilderman adds.
The Thorsheim family recently established the Christopher A. Thorsheim ’85 Scholarship to support students seeking a business degree who have exhibited outstanding academic and extracurricular credentials and have a financial need.
