25 years ago today was a cold, cloudy November Saturday. It was two days after Thanksgiving. My whole family had gathered at the family farm in Kenyon, Minnesota but I had to stay in Kenosha to work, but at least it was a quiet and easy-going holiday and weekend for me, if a bit quiet and lonely. By noon, I was at WGTD, hosting my classical request show “Saturday by Request” – but thanks to it being a holiday weekend, things were a little quieter than usual …. so every phone call made me smile.
Except when the phone rang at about 2:00.
It was my dad. He was crying. I instantly knew that something really bad had happened. But I never dreamed that the news would be as bad as it was.
My mom had just died, suddenly and essentially without warning. She was 58 years old.
Mom, dad, Randi, Matt and Nathan had been driving back to Beloit from Kenyon (where Steve was living at the time) – and were passing through LaCrosse when my mom, up in the front passenger seat, asked Randi (who was driving) to pull over at the next exit- presumably to use the restroom. Randi dutifully took the next exit and pulled into the first gas station she came to, but my mom didn’t get out of the car. She was staring straight ahead, as if trying to focus on something. When Randi said “we’re here” or words to that effect, mom slowly turned to Randi with a quizzical look on her face and struggled to say something that essentially came out as gibberish. Instantly realizing that something was seriously wrong, they were able to ascertain somehow (I’ve never asked them how- this was years before cell phones or GPS) that they were very close to the Gunderson Clinic or one of its offices. In a very few minutes they were there, and a wheel chair was waiting for them at the curb. I’ve been told that my mom actually made some sort of joking remark about the wheel chair as they were easing her into it – which would have been vintage Bev Berg – but by the time they reached the door of the clinic, she was completely unconscious. (I wasn’t there- but I almost feel like I was because when my family later described the scene to me, I hung on their every word and begged for more details. I have the scene vividly crafted in my mind- and to this day it remains one of the crispest, most potent memories of my entire life … though it exists only in my imagination.) And despite all that they tried to do, my mom’s vital signs continued to unravel and within a very few minutes she was gone.
I hesitated to use those words because of something from that day that I find especially heartbreaking. When my dad came back to the waiting room where the rest of the family was, he said “she’s gone” – and Matt and Randi knew immediately what he meant. But Nathan did not. He thought she had perhaps been taken to a different hospital. It was only when they went to the car, began the long drive back to Beloit, and began to talk about the funeral and other arrangements that Nathan realized that mom had died. I cannot imagine what that moment must have felt like for him.
It was a staggering shock for all of us. My mom had battled very high blood pressure and had other health issues, but was not suffering from any sort of serious illness or disease. This came as a complete and devastating surprise- and compounding the shock was the fact that a thorough autopsy provided no insight into what had caused her death. In a bit of dark humor, I remember how Randi in subsequent years would refer to the Ember’s Restaurant in LaCrosse (where they had eaten lunch not long before mom was stricken) as “the restaurant that killed mom.” If only there had been such a clear answer.
As I hung up the phone after receiving the news, I found myself going to the record shelves and selecting “The Bach Album” by the Philadelphia Orchestra …. and selected one of my mom’s favorite pieces of music, “Sheep may safely graze.” And when it came time to play it over the air, I announced the piece and then added these simple words: “in memory of my mom.” (I wasn’t averse to saying something to the listeners about what had happened except that I really feared that I might cry right over the air.) That quiet, soothing music began flowing out over the monitor – and I don’t think it had ever sounded more beautiful to my ears than it did in that moment. But I felt so incredibly ALONE in my sorrow and shock.
And then the phone rang. I swallowed, took a deep breath, and answered it. It was Jeri Smith, someone from Holy Communion (a member of the choir, and also a member of the worship & music committee that had just hired me a few months earlier) – who must have been listening and wanted to be sure she had correctly understood me. She could not have kinder or more sensitive, and just hearing the words “I am so sorry” meant the world to me. It also shook me loose from my stupor and helped me get on with what I had to do. The first phone call I made (as I let the Bach Album play on) was to Kandice Brill, the person scheduled to relieve me at 5:00. I asked her, without explaining why, if she would come in as soon as possible – and she kindly agreed. The next phone call was to my best friend, Marshall, and I can still remember his “Oh NO!” like it was yesterday. It was hard to inflict that bad news on him, and yet there was such comfort just in having someone with whom to share the sorrow. It also reminded me that this was a loss suffered by more than just me and my immediate family. There was a wider circle of family shouldering this loss, to say nothing of all kinds of friends, who cherished my mom and for whom this was a heartbreaking and stunning loss.
And once I left the radio station (I feel like it was a little bit before 4) my memories are all but nonexistent. I have no recollection of packing and not the slightest memory of the 75 minute drive to Beloit, which was way back before the days of cell phones (let alone smartphones or facebook or email) – so that was a very different drive than it would be now, where one could potentially reach out to the world…or be reached the world. It had to have been a crushingly quiet, lonely drive- but I don’t remember any of it, not even a little bit.
My next vivid memory is of driving up the road towards Luther Valley Lutheran Church with our house just beyond it – and of pulling into the parking lot and being greeted by an absolutely shocking sight: more than a dozen cars. I had thought that I might be coming home to an empty house (not sure of how long it would take dad and the rest to get there from LaCrosse) …. but here were all kinds of parishioners from Luther Valley, including some of our dearest friends, there to be with us in our sorrow, which was their sorrow, too! That’s when I cried the hardest- when I saw those cars, and then walked into the parsonage to find so many people there. Our house was like Grief & Support Central Headquarters, with all these people there to do what they could- to make sure that we weren’t alone in our grief. And in a very real sense, they didn’t want to be alone in their grief either. By the way, my family was there (aside from Steve, who came a few days later from Minnesota.) Dad, Matt, Randi and Nathan were there by then- but in a strange sort of way, the distinction between family and friends had pretty much dissolved by that point.
At this point, I should probably be quoting holy scripture or Ben Franklin or some great work of literature, but instead I’m offering up this moment from the last episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show. It’s when all of the main staff of WTMJ are together in the newsroom, bidding a sad farewell to each other, and Mary says to her coworkers: “What is family? It’s the people who make me feel less alone …. and really loved.” When I think back 25 years, that is what I remember most vividly of all …. that extraordinary sense of feeling NOT ALONE after feeling so completely alone. And when I think back to my mom and the kind of person she was, I realize that there is no better way to capture her loving, generous, open-hearted, joyous spirit then to say that she was family to an amazing number of people. And 25 years after her death, I could be marking the occasion by singing a concert in her memory (as I did on this date ten years ago) or laying flowers on her grave. Instead, I am going to try and do something today to make someone else feel Less Alone and Really Loved.
And if I’m really serious about honoring my mom’s memory and making her proud, then I’ll try to do that tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that . . . and I bet that there is someone from your own life who lived a similarly luminous life whom you could honor in the same way. No tribute could be more meaningful.
Pictured above: This drawing of my mom was done by Don Ricchio, and underneath it are the lyrics to a Christmas song I wrote in her memory, “Mother’s Love.” This drawing (beautifully framed) was a gift from Kate Potter-Barrow and it hangs proudly in my studio at home. The last lines of the lyrics are:
We know not what words were said
in that cold and simple shed
but we see a fleeting glimpse-
catch a glimmer or a precious hint
of Mary’s love for her Son
by the way you and I have been
warmed and fed and held
by a Mother’s Love.