South Dakota

(Note—I realize I’m going on and on about my nephew’s death, but writing it all out is great therapy and for that matter, I guess you can always go visit someone else’s blog if you’ve had enough.)

My evening in South Dakota was terribly sad, healing, and enlightening, all at the same time.

About four years ago, Leonard moved away from his home in Minnesota to a small town two hours away, just into South Dakota. It was there that he died, so his family decided to have a viewing/visitation there before bringing his body back to Minnesota for the funeral and burial.

To save costs, they chose to bring the body back in Marcus’s van, and one of the enduring images of that week is of stopping by my brother’s place on Wednesday afternoon and seeing him outside carefully washing his van in preparation for bringing his son’s body home.

Only a few of us went—Leonard’s immediate family, myself, and 5 of Anna’s family.

To be living my normal life on Sunday and then three days later find myself in a small South Dakota town at my nephew’s viewing was downright surreal. So was the glimpse into Leonard’s world of farmers and cowboys and warm, down-home people with pronounced South Dakota accents.

The funeral home was beautiful, an old renovated house. We sat in a hushed, dim room as dozens of young men came through, all of them clean-cut and dressed in almost identical uniforms of long-sleeved shirts, cowboy boots, and tight jeans with big belt buckles. All of them were polite and respectful, all were silent. They placed their black hats on a shelf at the entry, greeted the family, stood with bowed heads at the casket, and then gathered in a little anteroom, where they sat in silence for almost two hours.

One young man stood near the casket for an hour and a half. He was from Wyoming, it turned out, and had come all that way because he and Leonard were friends.

Families came together, groups of young women came, and toughened farmers came.

I knew this was the only chance I would ever have to get a glimpse of Leonard’s life, so I forced myself to talk to a few people. "How did you know Lenny?" I would ask, and out would pour their story. "Lenny took me hunting. I didn’t have a big brother, so he said he would be my big brother." "Lenny was my friend." "Lenny and I baled hay together." "Lenny was in my Bible study." "Lenny was like a son to me."

There were many stories told that evening besides the ones I heard first-hand. One young man came in a wheelchair. He had been badly hurt in a house-moving accident and it hurt terribly to be transported, but he insisted on coming. "Lenny had a huge impact on my son’s life," his mother said.

Then there was the beautiful blond girl that Lenny had liked who couldn’t seem to stop crying. She had just turned 18 not too long ago, and wasn’t interested in dating just yet, Lenny had told his sister, but she was still a good friend.

"We worked long hours together, and I never saw him get angry," said one co-worker. "And if one of us had the flu, we knew pretty soon Lenny would show up to do the milking for him."

The girls wept, the guys were silent, the moms and dads hugged Marcus and Anna and cried with them.

I thought, over and over and over, "Oh, Leonard, how could you not know how loved you were?"