View From a Prairie Home

by Hege Hernfindahl, Columnist

It’s just a date, I tell myself. Just a date, like Christmas, Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July. A date, a holiday. It can be ignored, I tell myself. It doesn’t have to hurt, because I can just pretend it is another date and not January 18th.

Patrick would have turned 47 today. Instead, he died at 43 on June 6. Another date that hurts. And two years ago, on what would have been Patrick’s 45th birthday, Erland, our son, had his cancer surgery, where they removed half of his liver. A cancer that, despite his eight hour surgery, took his life a few months later. So, for that reason too, January 18th is a date that sends me into tailspins of what-ifs.

What if, Patrick would not have had a heart attack that day? A totally senseless heart attack that is not really the heart, but the left descending artery that suddenly gets so plugged with plaque that the heart stops. Doctors tell me, even if a cardiologist had run right next to Patrick that day, she wouldn’t have been able to save him. They also tell me this type of heart attack is unpredictable and totally senseless. Patrick had just had a physical at Mayo. He was a totally healthy young man.

Patrick and our daughter, Ingvild, started dating in 1995 when they were both freshmen at Macalister College in St. Paul. We were introduced to him that fall and immediately liked him. He was charming and funny and engaged. He could connect to everybody, whether young or old, gay or straight, black or white. He is the only person, besides my students, who would laugh at my corny jokes.

When they decided to get married, we all sat down and planned their wedding. A year before the event, we all pitched in and transformed our yard into a wedding party venue. We dug a pond, put up a gazebo and used a garden hose to outline the new flower gardens, so they would curve gracefully around the newly made patio.

The day was beautiful, albeit a little hot, and after the wedding ceremony performed by Pastor Rich, who had baptized Ingvild 24 years earlier, the guests assembled in our back yard where a tent was put up to give us shade. There were speeches and music and lots of love shared with the young couple who, the next day, drove to Florida with a moving van. They lived there for five years while Patrick got his Ph.D. in bio-chemistry at the University of Florida at Gainesville.

I missed them both so much that I took 18 trips to Gainesville during those five years. And the news of him having gotten a job as a research doctor at Mayo in 2006 filled me with deep joy, especially since Erland and his family had just moved to Springfield, a suburb of DC.

The commute from Benson to Kasson was much more manageable and didn’t involve getting on a plane. And I could be there whenever there was a big event, a baby born or a birthday or even a special weekend. And they would come here for every holiday since Patrick’s parents lived far away. Sometimes we went on vacations together, enjoying time spent with the kids, but also with the adults.

I remember once on a hot night in February on the island of St. Martin, Patrick and I stayed up late, sitting on the balcony, listening to the waves as they hit the cliffs below. And we talked and talked. About life. About our dreams. And about his kids, whom we both loved so much. He told me that his most important job in life was to be a good father. And he was. He participated in plays to show his sons it was a cool thing for boys to do. He took dancing lessons so he could dance with his daughter on stage.

They were 11, 13 and 16 when they lost their dad. We were all stunned into deep, deep sorrow and grief. But they survived, because they also have an amazing mom. And all three of them are stronger people now with deep empathy and compassion. Maybe caused by the profound loss of their committed father.