Lasting Memories

Mark Brady
July 27, 1946-July 31, 2025
Whidbey Island, Washington

Mark Brady, PhD., born in New Haven on July 27, 1946, died on Whidbey Island on July 31, 2025. Mark and his two sisters were born in a housing project in New Haven CT. Raised first by their single mother, and later by his 18-year-old sister, Andrea. In his 20s he followed a spiritual directive delivered to him by a Turkish Sufi teacher who instructed him to: “Provide shelter for people”, and thus spent much of his life, building and remodeling homes in New York and in California.  Mark graduated from Fairfield University, Connecticut  with a degree in psychology and worked as a counselor with young adults at a residential treatment center. This was the beginning of a lifelong career of service as a psychologist. He received a Master’s in Family therapy, where he met Susan Hamlin (nee Mark), whom he married in 1979. Together they raised a daughter, Amanda, born in 1983.    Mark received his Doctorate in Transpersonal Psychology from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, California in 1991. While housebuilding in Palo Alto, he began writing what became a collection of books, including The Wisdom of Listening, as well as many others relating to parenting,  psychology and eventually a weekly blog on neuroscience, The Flowering Brain, for 18 years. Mark worked for 25 years as a volunteer at   Kara in Palo Alto. He was a major contributor in creating their children’s grief program.    In 2011 he married Muriel Hastings and together they moved to Whidbey Island, WA. There he continued teaching classes on Grief, as well as on Polyvagal Theory, The Neurobiology of Sacred Relationships, Embodied Altruism, and deepening his teaching and writing skills. He and Muriel became the proud parents of 4 Bernese Mountain Dogs, and the grandparents to 12 Bernese Mountain Dog puppies. Mark was a teacher, husband, father, brother, house builder, and neuroscientist. He is survived by his wife Murial Hastings, daughter Amanda Brady, sister Melanie Radojkovic,  former wife Susan Hamlin, and the many people whose lives he touched with his generous, compassionate, wise, silly, creative and wonderful spirit. He will be missed.