Deaths comes in two versions

The abrupt death of my husband’s brother, Milt Walli, left both of us and our extended families wet-eyed for much of the week. Milt’s son Michael found him on Wednesday morning, dead on the basement floor, most likely from a misstep and bad fall.

Fielding Michael’s call, Rod went immediately to the South Finn Road family farm where Milt lived alone. He helped Michael through the visit of the coroner, placing Milt in a body bag for an autopsy, and calling his brother, sisters and the rest of his close family.

Such sadness, like a huge dark, dank cloud rolling over us. I was surprised by my own outbursts. It took me days to stop crying at just the thought of Milt. Slowly I began to understand how his disappearance from our lives paralleled my father’s death in 1974. My brother called to say our father had fallen while rappelling off the Taylors Falls cliffs. His sling had broken. He fell only 30 feet, screamed as he fell, and died instantly. Both my brothers were with him.

I returned home to Minneapolis. My mother, brothers and I spent a week together in disbelief. Eating casseroles brought by kind neighbors. Preparing a funeral service. Sitting around dumbly, teary-eyed. Trying to cope with his complete evaporation from our lives. Dad had donated his body to the University of Minnesota. There was no physical trace of his being, of his wiry body, his kind face, his head completely bald from the alopecia he suffered as a young married man.

There are two ways of dying, and perhaps others in between. For survivors, we usually either know that a loved one is ailing and facing death, or we suffer the shock of their sudden absence. Neither is preferable. But the way we respond to each differs.

At the service for Dad, in Minneapolis’ St. Thomas the Apostle chapel, several people said to me, “Well, at least he died doing something he loved.” I could not agree. I felt furious, but had to hold my tongue.

I’ve met death of loved ones both ways. My mother died slowly, over a few months, of blood clots in her lungs. She was 88. For the last month, I spent days on end helping her navigate the nursing facility in her complex. In small chunks, I read back to her the life story that she’d written, evoking some new and funnier stories. I added some of these, surreptitiously, into the autobiography she’d penciled and that I’d transferred for her onto my computer. It was very comforting, even hilarious at times, for us both.

Slow death has its challenges, too. Especially if your loved one is fearful, in great pain or missing in action in any way. Or if you are tussling with medical professionals to respect your wishes. Or with terrible financial choices. Or dissension in the family.

Just some things to think about, to share. Everyone has their stories, some terrible, some beautiful.

A friend this summer told me of the car she was driving falling into a river. She tried to get her husband out but failed. She survived. She is still struggling, reliving it.

Rod remembers how he came to say goodbye to his father before going on a motorcycle trip with Barb, his first wife. “I won’t be here when you get back,” his dad said. “That’s all right Dad, it’s OK to go.” Affirming and giving permission. Sure enough, while on their trip, his dad died.

When Barb died of breast cancer, Rod was holding her feet, giving her a foot rub.

Death is so inevitable. For us, for our loved ones. Whatever your beliefs and experiences, I wish you compassion, serenity, absence of excruciating pain, good caregivers. And, even, some laughter.

Ann Markusen is an economist and professor emerita at University of Minnesota. A Pine Knot board member, she lives in Red Clover Township north of Cromwell with her husband, Rod Walli.