View from a Prairie Home

By Hege Herfindahl, Columnist

I learned two years ago, when my beloved son-in-law, Patrick, died, about deep, dark and lonesome grief. Patrick died, as you all probably remember from me writing about it many times, of a kind of heart attack caused by a blood clot in the left descending artery. He died suddenly while out for his morning run on our driveway. His type of heart attack should not happen to an athlete in his 40s, but it did, and our lives changed forever. 

Ingvild and Patrick and their three children celebrated all holidays with us. We also took many trips together. Patrick was like our son. And losing him was a blow from which I still haven’t recovered. And then we lost our son, Erland. Again it was totally unexpected. As I have written before, people like Erland, young and healthy, do not get liver cancer. 

And even though he was very sick and weak at the end, I somehow thought he would survive. But he didn’t. I still at times don’t believe it. Because Erland and his family haven’t lived in Minnesota for almost seventeen years, I am used to not having him around. We would see each other about three or four times a year. He would always be home for a few weeks in the summer and we would make sure we visited both in the spring and the fall, often for the boys’ birthdays. So, not having him around makes me believe he is still there. Somewhere. 

But the day of his funeral, it was made real for me. He was gone. The bulletin and urn had the day of his death, August 6th. We sang his favorite hymns. There were eulogies from his colleagues, his best friend Mike, and his sister Ingvild and brother Reuben. The pastor’s sermon was very personal. He spoke directly to Erland’s two sons, Ove and Nils. And to our utter amazement, he spoke Swahili in his message to Erland’s widow, Esther, who is from Kenya. At the end, they played “Fields of Gold” which Erland had listened to when he was dying. 

There were cards and flowers and hugs everywhere. At times I was mentally in a corner crying, but then I saw Ove and Nils, who had carried the urn, and I managed to pull myself together. 

After a lunch at church, lovingly prepared by some of my friends, relatives and close friends went to our house. It was raining, so we all stayed inside. To this day, I can’t remember how we all fit, because our old farmhouse isn’t that big. There was more food, again brought by kind and compassionate friends. There was crying and laughing as we told stories and commiserated. 

I don’t remember if I talked or cried. But I do remember when the rain stopped and it grew dark. Somehow the moon hadn’t yet come out. And the sky was crystal clear. I have never seen stars like that night. A group of us walked down the driveway away from the yard light. And Reuben started to point out constellations. It was magic. 

We might have walked in darkness, but the stars lit up our path. So now, when my grief takes my breath away, I do not go into a corner to scream, I simply walk outside and look at the magic of God’s world. It doesn’t take away the grief I feel, but it makes me realize that in spite of our losses, there is light in the darkness.