Skip to content

Marcus Washington I

Marcus Levi Washington I, known within his family as Pop, was a Black American construction worker and the patriarch of the Washington family. Born in 1944, he spent his entire life in West Baltimore. He and his wife, Denise Washington, raised their son in the home that later held three generations of the family. After Diana Washington’s death and Marcus II’s withdrawal from active parenting, Marcus and Denise took primary responsibility for their grandson without abandoning their son.

Marcus was autistic, although he was never formally diagnosed and did not have that framework for himself. He communicated more readily through presence, routine, work, grunts, and small physical gestures than through extended speech. His family learned those forms of communication as a detailed and consistent language.

Early Life and Family

Marcus was born in West Baltimore in 1944 and remained rooted there throughout his life. He and Denise courted during the mid-1960s. Their only son, Marcus Levi Washington II, was born in September 1966, and they married in approximately 1967.

Marcus worked in construction for thirty years. His long-fingered hands remained central to how he built, repaired, maintained, and cared for things even after arthritis made that work more difficult.

Marcus II remained in his parents’ home as an adult. When he married Diana, she joined the household, and their son, Marcus Levi Washington III, was born there in January 1997. Pop was present for his grandson’s bottles, first steps, driveway basketball, school events, games, and major milestones. After Diana died in 2010 and Marcus II’s grief and alcohol use made him unable to parent consistently, Marcus and Denise stepped forward within the same household. They raised Marcus III while continuing to make room for Marcus II’s recovery.

Physical Characteristics

Marcus was tall and lean, with a long-limbed, narrow frame that grew more angular with age. His posture remained naturally upright even as arthritis slowed him. He had medium-dark-brown skin, brown eyes, and dark hair that he wore closely cropped; by his later years, his hair was salt-and-pepper.

Age had hollowed his cheeks slightly and left deep lines around his mouth and across his forehead. His face moved less readily than those of the more expressive members of his family, making the warmth in his steady brown eyes easy for strangers to miss. Denise, Diana, and Marcus III could read it immediately.

His hands were long-fingered and deliberate. Degenerative arthritis enlarged his knuckles, reduced his grip strength, and made it harder to hold a mug, open jars, use tools, and work in the garden. His knees also stiffened and swelled, changing how he climbed stairs, lowered himself into his chair, and navigated bleachers. He smelled faintly of clean soap, laundry detergent, cotton, and his own skin rather than cologne or aftershave.

Marcus usually dressed simply and neatly. For church, funerals, his grandson’s graduation, and other formal family occasions, he wore a pressed navy-blue button-down tucked into khakis.

Personality and Communication

Marcus was quiet, observant, and deeply constant. His silence did not indicate inattention. He followed conversations from his chair, noticed changes in his son and grandson, and remembered the sounds and routines of the people he loved. He did not demand verbal explanations from other people simply because he rarely offered them himself.

His voice was a deep, hoarse bass. Most of his vocal communication came through low, gravelly grunts whose meanings changed with their sound and context. A grunt could serve as a greeting, acknowledgment, disagreement, contentment, or an indication of pain. He used nods for approval. When he chose words, his speech was low, rough, concise, and direct.

Marcus’s expressive restraint did not mean that he lacked humor, tenderness, joy, grief, or fear. Amusement registered in his eyes and in particular sounds that Denise could identify across a room. He took pleasure in his wife’s voice, his grandson’s energy, a familiar chair, coffee, the newspaper, and knowing what came next. He expressed tenderness by attending, repairing, planting, waiting, and remaining beside the people he loved.

He did not ordinarily give verbal declarations of love. His recurring gestures included leaving doors open, placing a hand on Denise’s elbow on stairs, resting a flat palm between her shoulder blades during emotional moments, lowering his newspaper to give someone his full attention, and standing at the moments when pride overcame the physical cost. When his hand remained on Denise’s back, his thumb sometimes moved only a fraction; she understood the movement as part of the physical language they had developed over decades.

Autism, Sensory Needs, and Routine

Marcus was autistic but never received a formal diagnosis. His family and community knew him as a quiet man who depended on familiar arrangements and spoke little. He organized daily life around stable places, objects, and sequences: the same chair, coffee, newspaper, crossword and pencil, his usual place beside Denise, the right side of their bed, television at night, and an open bedroom door.

Marcus disliked closed doors. When Denise asked why, he answered, “Don’t like it closed.” She stopped closing their bedroom door around 1972.

His newspaper served as a source of focus, a sensory buffer, and a boundary the family could read. When it remained raised, Marcus was present but unavailable for conversation. Lowering it meant that he was listening closely. Setting it down entirely marked his complete attention.

Crowded, noisy events cost him substantial energy, but he continued to attend church, basketball games, family gatherings, and school milestones. After sustained noise, he often went upstairs to “rest his eyes.” At Marcus III’s June 2015 graduation, he sat through several hours in a hot gym with hard bleachers, poor acoustics, a loud public-address system, and a cheering crowd. He stood when his grandson’s scholarship was announced. Afterward, he lay fully dressed on the bed with his hands folded and his eyes open while the noise and effort settled. Denise later covered him with a brown knit blanket, and his mouth gradually relaxed.

Arthritis and Relationship to His Body

Marcus had degenerative arthritis in his hands and knees. He rarely described his pain aloud. Denise recognized it through changes in his movement: the new pause at the bottom of the stairs, the weight he began placing on the railing, the careful rotation of his wrist around a coffee mug, the controlled way he lowered himself into his chair, and the point at which he stopped opening jars.

She placed his mug near his better hand, opened containers, and adjusted her pace without requiring an explanation. Marcus often placed a hand on Denise’s elbow when they used stairs. At Marcus III’s December 2014 scout game, they steadied one another at the elbow while climbing the bleachers. Their physical support was reciprocal and practiced.

Arthritis increased the cost of activities he continued to value. He still climbed bleachers, stood for his grandson, worked in the backyard garden, and attended the events that mattered. When kneeling in the garden became too difficult, Marcus III began helping and eventually took over parts of its upkeep.

Habits and Daily Life

Marcus’s brown recliner by the window was a stable center of the Washington home. He read the newspaper and worked crosswords there, usually with his glasses and pencil close at hand. He listened even when conversation took place in another room. At night, Denise knew from his breathing when he had fallen asleep in front of the television; she turned it off and brushed his arm as she moved away.

His routines supported rather than separated him from his family. He was at the kitchen table, in his chair, beside Denise in the bleachers, at Sunday dinners, and present when Marcus II returned from double shifts. He kept familiar structures going through bereavement and family crisis. He did not treat his ability to continue as evidence that other people should grieve as he did.

Family and Core Relationships

Denise Washington

Main article: Marcus Washington I and Denise Washington

Marcus and Denise had been married for approximately forty-eight years by 2015. Denise was warm, socially expansive, and loudly expressive; Marcus was quiet and economical. Neither required the other to become more alike. She learned the distinctions among his grunts, silences, gestures, newspaper positions, and pain behaviors. He supported her through steadiness, physical contact, shared routine, and his refusal to leave emotionally difficult moments.

At basketball games, Denise shouted while Marcus watched, nodded, and stood for meaningful plays. In private, their communication was often smaller: a hand on an elbow, a palm against her back, her adjustment of his coffee mug, or the nightly brush of her hand across his arm.

Denise’s voice and movements were woven through the routines that made home predictable for Marcus. He could not construct an image of his life without her, and watching their son survive Diana’s death gave that fear a concrete shape.

Marcus Washington II

Main article: Marcus Washington I and Marcus Washington II

Marcus recognized his own quiet, internal way of moving through the world in his son, although neither man had diagnostic language for their shared autism. They communicated through proximity, nods, grunts, and attention. Marcus never interpreted his son’s quietness as emptiness or lack.

When Diana entered their lives in late 1987, Marcus noticed the changes in his twenty-one-year-old son: a less guarded posture, more frequent quarter-smiles, and a quiet laugh that Diana alone could draw from him. He heard that laugh across the more than twenty-two years she shared their lives.

After Diana’s death, Marcus II withdrew, drank heavily, and worked double shifts. Marcus I did not shame him, compare their grief, or order him to recover. He remained available in the chair, at the table, in nearby rooms, and at Marcus III’s events. Marcus understood that his son’s world had lost the person around whom it was organized, even though he could not repair that loss for him.

During the March 2015 University of Maryland home visit, Marcus watched Marcus II step forward to reassure his son. When Marcus II spoke about Diana teaching Marcus III the game and repeated that “she built him,” Marcus set his newspaper down entirely.

Marcus Washington III

Main article: Marcus Washington I and Marcus Washington III

Marcus had lived with his grandson since birth. When Diana died and Marcus II could no longer parent reliably, Marcus and Denise assumed active responsibility for Marcus III without discussion or complaint. Pop attended every basketball game and school event that required parental presence despite the pain and sensory cost.

Marcus III understood his grandfather’s recurring signals: a grunt for hello, a nod for approval, a lowered newspaper for attention, and standing as an expression of pride. At games, Pop sat beside Denise and rarely called out. He rose for the moments that mattered.

After Marcus III’s graduation, Pop fell asleep unusually in his recliner with his crossword pencil still in his hand, his glasses crooked, his mouth tight, and his hands and knees swollen from the long afternoon. Marcus III covered him with the green-and-brown crocheted afghan and tucked it around his knees. As Pop’s arthritis worsened, Marcus III also joined him in the garden and gradually assumed the work that required kneeling.

Diana Rochelle Washington

Main article: Marcus Washington I and Diana Washington

Diana entered the Washington family in late 1987 and became Marcus’s daughter in practice as well as his daughter-in-law. She first called him “Daddy Washington” and soon shortened it to “Daddy.” Marcus accepted the name and the relationship it claimed.

Diana’s experience understanding her minimally speaking brother, Levi Russell, allowed her to read Marcus’s grunts, silences, posture, and attention with unusual fluency. Denise had been the only person who fully understood his communication; Diana became the second. She did not simplify her speech or route conversation through Denise. She sat near him, brought him coffee, talked while he listened, and responded to what he communicated in return.

When Diana was seven months pregnant, Marcus stood in the nursery doorway and gave a low, warm grunt. Diana understood it as his approval of the room, the coming baby, and her place in the family.

After learning that Levi had loved flowers and butterflies, Marcus created a garden for Diana in the backyard. He had not previously gardened. He laid edging stones, turned the earth, and planted bright flowers, including marigolds and zinnias, that would attract butterflies. He knew Diana used the garden to grieve and did not follow or interrupt her when she went outside in unusual silence.

After Diana died from triple-negative breast cancer in 2010, Marcus resumed tending the garden despite his worsening knees. He weeded, watered, and maintained the stones without speaking about his grief. The work preserved the place he had built for his daughter and for the brother he had never met.

Across his adult life, Marcus also outlived Denise’s mother, his own father, and his brother. He continued his routines and remained physically available to his family through each loss.

Key Events

December 2014 Scout Game

Main article: UMD Scout Game (December 2014) - Event

Marcus and Denise attended the game at which a University of Maryland scout evaluated Marcus III. Marcus climbed the bleachers slowly because of his arthritis and took the family’s usual third-row position. When Keisha Clark sat between him and Denise in Diana’s former seat, he greeted her with a grunt. His first spoken question to her was, “You play basketball?” He nodded during the game and stood when his grandson scored.

March 2015 University of Maryland Home Visit

Main article: UMD Home Visit (Late March 2015) - Event

Marcus wore his navy button-down and khakis when the University of Maryland coaches visited the family home. He sat in his chair by the window with the newspaper raised while observing the conversation. He folded it when the coaches presented the scholarship and set it down when Marcus II credited Diana with building their son’s game. After Marcus III accepted the full scholarship, Marcus shook the coaches’ hands and said, “Thank you, gentlemen.”

June 2015 Graduation

Main article: West Baltimore High School Graduation (June 2015) - Event

Marcus attended Marcus III’s graduation despite the gym’s sustained noise, heat, hard bleachers, and the pain in his hands and knees. He stood when the scholarship announcement was made. Later, as Denise cried beside him, he placed his hand against her back and moved his thumb in the small gesture she understood.

Memorable Quotes

“Don’t like it closed.” (Explaining why he did not want the bedroom door shut.)

“You play basketball?” (Spoken to Keisha in the bleachers during the December 2014 UMD scout game.)

“Thank you, gentlemen.” (Spoken to the University of Maryland coaches during the March 2015 home visit.)

Characters Supporting Characters Living Characters Black Characters Black American Characters Neurodivergent Characters Autistic Characters Washington Family