Rowan Patrick Sharkey was born on March 17, 1986 and died on April 7, 2024. Rowan was a wonderful , loving, sensitive and tender-hearted boy, young man and man who lived his life with zeal, humor, a sharp wit, and sometimes stubbornness. He was born in Portland, Oregon and lived most of his life in the Hood River Valley, where he attended Parkdale Elementary, Wy’East Middle School, and Hood River High School. He moved to Lincoln City on the Oregon coast in 2016, where he resided until his death. He gathered energy and inspiration from the outdoors and especially from the ocean. He was a multi-skilled, artistic, jack-of-all-trades who found employment in many and varied trades. Rowan loved many, many human and other living beings who were blessed enough to have him in their lives, and they loved Rowan with a profound depth.
Rowan had an ATV (all-terrain vehicle) accident in 2007 which nearly killed him and left him with extremely severe head, neck and spine injuries. He did ‘survive’ that accident, but from then on, from 2007 to his death, he experienced essentially unremitting pain. He was prescribed Oxycodone pain medication at that time and over the years was prescribed a total of at least a dozen more PRESCRIPTION MEDICATIONS, all of them prescribed simultaneously. On April 7, 2024 he took what turned out to be a fatal amount of those legally prescribed pills.
Rowan was brave: he only occasionally gave in, and never gave up. The hole that his disappearance leaves, the agony of the pain it leaves in the hearts and minds and souls of those he left behind, might “age” with time, the stiletto-sharpness of the grief might dull some, but it will never dissipate. He was a multi-faceted, complex person, a good person with human flaws, a joyous and generous and unforgettable person, and his spirit will survive and persist, with warmth and zest, in those who knew and loved him so deeply. His surviving family includes his two sons, Austen Lee and Dakota Sharkey, father and mother Doug Sharkey and Marga Sarriugarte-Sharkey, grandfather Allan Sharkey, aunt and uncle Karen and Charles Gerttula, uncle Morris Sarriugarte, aunt and uncle Dave and Debra Sharkey, aunt and uncle Debra Sharkey and Michael Schmandt, cousins Tara Gerttula, Alexis Jonson, Ben Gerttula, ex-wife Vanessa Lee, brother-in-soul AC Bolling, mother-at-birth Ruth Clark, and extended family and dear friends.
There will be a remembrance Celebration of Life for Rowan which will be announced shortly.
Donations can be made to “Medicating Normal” at medicatingnormal.com