Remembering Chris Martin

This piece received cognition from the Society of Professional Journalists; The SPJ Mark of Excellence regional judges selected this piece as a Finalist in the Feature Writing (Small) 1-9,999 Students category for the 2017 Region 10 Mark of Excellence Awards. After the Gonzaga community lost a student to suicide, I had the honor to write an obituary to remember his life and showcase the impact he had on GU's campus.

Photo Courtesy of Pam Martin

He was an adventurer, the first to dance and the friend to drop everything to lend a helping hand. He always found the humor and smelled like an Abercrombie & Fitch store. Chris Martin can be defined many ways but, without fail, is described as kind. 

“He was always so polite,” Martin’s mother, Pam, said. “He would never not open the door for me. ‘Oh, mom, let me grab that for you. Mom I got your suitcase.’ He was so kind, poised and polite.” 

Martin, 20, died by suicide on Oct. 26. The Gonzaga junior struggled with mental illness his entire life.  

On campus Martin could be spotted above all the rest, standing over 6 feet tall. And he loved to play basketball.  

“He was a good basketball player,” said Robert Horsfield, a GU junior. “Well ... We used to give him a lot of slack because he was hit or miss. If he would get going, he’d be really hot, but if he was cold, he was really cold. And he was a tall guy and he would never rebound.”   

Prior to playing with friends in the Rudolf Fitness Center, he played with the King’s High School Knights basketball team. 

In 2015, Martin’s senior year, the team’s bus crashed and rolled on its side on the ride home from a district championship victory. The Knights went on to win the state title that year.

Martin, among 15 others, was not seriously injured. They all had been saved. 

“Saved for a reason” was tattooed on Martin’s abdomen after the crash. 

Saved to come to GU. 

Saved to bless the people around him. 

Saved to bring more kindness to this world. 

“He was always a caring guy to the people around him,” said Jesse Howland, a GU junior. 

During the second semester of his freshman year is when Martin met both Howland and Horsfield after moving to Coughlin Hall from Dooley Hall.

Quickly he made friends with many other Coughlin residents.

“Chris is the most likeable guy you’ll ever meet,” Horsfield said. “He’s never shy about meeting someone new. He’s the same with every single person he meets. He’s super nice, super friendly, he will always make you feel welcome.”  

Martin had an adventurous personality. During high school, along with basketball, Martin participated in DECA, golf, cross country and improv theater. During this past summer he taught his dog, Benson, to ride waves with him. He pursued photography as well. 

“[He used] photography to look out into the world and see the beauty,” Pam said. 

Last summer he photographed his cousin’s wedding.

“His Aunt Dot described it as he could find the happiness in people and capture it on camera,” said Amelie Tristant, a fifth-year nursing major.

When he came to GU he continued to try new things. During his freshman year he was on the GU cheer team, and going into his junior year he became a parent-family coordinator for orientation weekend.

This is where he met Tristant. After orientation weekend finished, Tristant and Martin went their separate ways but found each other at a slam poetry event and their friendship grew deeply. 

She learned about his love for sushi, adventuring and photography. 

He used to turn on “Phineas and Ferb” every night before going to bed because he had trouble sleeping.His favorite color was slate gray, he loved country music and made playlists for his family.

She also learned that Martin was adopted. 

“Even if the priest said, ‘Here’s this baby — he’s sick and will only live 20 years,’ we still would have adopted him,” his mother said. 

When he was 7 weeks old Martin was adopted by Pam and Philip Martin through a Catholic priest. 

Martin struggled with his origins. He suffered from a mental illness known as reactive attachment disorder. 

“He hurt,” his mother said. “The priest even said ‘he had a wound from birth.’ ”

The rare disorder is one of very few that can be applied to infants. It is caused by a lack of attachment to a specific caregiver at an early age, and results in an inability for the child to form healthy, loving relationships with others, per the Rochester Institute of Technology.

“In the end it just got to be too much,” Tristant said.

From the outside looking in, many would not recognize the effects of this disorder. However, those closest to him understood that Martin was in deep pain. 

“I could tell that he always tried to be happy and have a smile on his face,” Howland said. “But he filled me in a lot on his darker side that he doesn’t share with people.”

Martin was surrounded by loving friends who supported him throughout his time at GU. 

“Once we walked him to CCP, we told him it would be OK,” Horsfield said. 

“It was really tough to see,” Howland said. “I could see that he had a mask on.” 

“He was never alone, which I think brought a lot of comfort to his family in the end,” Tristant said. 

But Martin never failed to be kind to others. 

“He was so nonjudgmental,” Pam said. “He was so kind. His suffering is what made him so kind.” 

“He always saw the best in people,” Horsfield said. “He wanted to help as many people as he could. He’d always be there for people.” 

Martin wouldn’t want people to dwell on the sadness, but instead take his memory and do something good with it, his mother said.

“[In his memory] go do good for other people,” she said. “It’s so easy to be unaware when people are hurting.”

Martin is survived by his parents, Philip and Pam, brother, Quinn, sister, Lily, and his dog, Benson. 

His family is creating a foundation in his name to honor his memory. Their vision for the foundation is that it will financially support research, education and provide care for those suffering from reactive attachment disorder. 

“God only knows why only 20 years,” his mother said. “We’re going to miss him.”

This obituary was published for the Gonzaga Bulletin. For the original post, click here.