Marc Edward Knoll

Marc was a deeply troubled man most of his life. When he was 8 years old his parents divorced and that hit him hard. He had a very high i/q. (somewhere around 160) He got straight A's all through school. He took a high school accounting class and completed the whole book in one semester. The rest of the class took the whole year to go through it. But marc's i/q had its draw backs. He did not know how to make friends, as he did not have any social skills. After the divorce Marc stopped caring about how he looked. He would go to school with his hair uncombed, and his shirt half tucked in. and his sense of humor was on a level that we did not understand. As a result he was constantly picked on by many of the kids at school, and was a social outcast. This caused Marc to retreat into himself, and he became an extreme narcissist. He did try to make friends for years. He would smile and make jokes that were funny to him: but not funny to anyone else. He would give you his shirt off his back if he thought that it would help you; but his helpful efforts were not always appreciated. (He would be sent to fix an oil burner for a furnace and would rearrange the clients basement lighting fixtures in order to make the basement lights more efficient in illuminating the basement. And he did a great job. But the customer was not happy because they like the lights where they were. As a result, Marc got yelled at for simply trying to help someone. What he did would have been ok if only he had gotten permission first. But he liked to do random acts of kindness without permission so as to try to gain favor from his boss and the client. But his kindness usually got him into trouble instead.

He worked for Knolls Heating and Cooling for 15 years. He became a service man for the company. There was not anything that he did not know about installing furnaces, air conditioners, heat pumps, water heaters, and plumbing. He was an export on these things. And he was an excellent handy man.


When he worked for a company he put his all into it. He was an excellent worker! Reliable, dependable, and competent! But he was always awkward as well. He had a bull-horn voice that could be heard for blocks. He did not know what it meant to talk quietly until the last year of his life. Most of his efforts to get people to like him failed. And so he withdrew into himself. He wanted to get married and have kids: but he did not have any idea of how to find a wife; or how to develop a relationship with a woman. This severely depressed him.

Marc and I used to argue all the time. He would figure that something aught to be a certain way. And once he figured out what that way ought to be: he believed that that was the way it really was working. Unfortunately many times he was wrong. I would spend hours showing him facts, and trying to reason with him and demonstrate that the way that he thought things should go is not the way that things actually were happening. After winning the argument: I would discover that a few days later; marc was stating the same arguments that he had held before and that all my effort to prove that he was wrong was wasted! Facts did not matter to marc: He thought that he had superior intelligence and that what ever he said was true was true regardless of whether or not the facts contradicted what he believed to be true. So marc proved to be a continual lesson for me in forgiving and loving someone who was hard to forgive and love. If he would not have been my brother: I would have stopped talking to him years ago! But because he was my brother: I just kept praying for him and doing everything I could to help him. And of course, Marc helped me whenever I needed help. Because despite all the wrong headed opinions that he held: he would help anyone who asked him to help them!

Marc. Went blind as cataracts caused him to lose his sight. I helped him get social security disability and get Medicaid so that he could get his cataracts removed. He would not fill out the paper work for himself, and argued with me saying that it was a waste of time. I told him that it could not hurt to try and went about filling out the applications that were needed to get him on these things.

Marc was granted sdi and he lived off from that for the rest of his life.


Then about a year ago; Marc's personality changed drastically. He became very soft spoken. I often had to ask him to talk louder so that I could hear him. And he refused to get into any more arguments with me: or anyone. I believe that this was when he just gave up on everything. He just lost his will to continue to live. He would not eat, unless I took him out to eat. (he usually paid for our meals as he had a lot more money that I did as sdi paid him more that I was making.) I did everything I could to try to get him to eat healthy meals. But he just would not do it. Every time I called and asked him how he was doing he would lie to me and say that he was eating ok.

Then he died.

The last year of Marc's life he was a great person. He was generous and kind. He did not drink alcohol, or use illegal drugs. He was a very good man.