I've avoided blogging because I knew I needed to write about the day of my last blog, but I didn't know how. Now that I'm writing I realize that this post is just as much, and probably more, for me than for anyone else who reads it. That day, the 19th of October, was just another Sunday for most people, but for me it was one of those rare days which act as bookmarks in ones life, separating the old from the new Heather. What happened that day has forever changed my life, my family's life and most of all my brother's, since it was the last day of his life.

Pavlina and I happened to be at my parents' house, it was the day before we were to fly home after a fall visit to pick apples and see Gram (greatgramma Irene). The doorbell rang just as we were getting coats on to go for a walk. There was a policeman at the door. My mom says she knew Mike was dead the moment he asked for my dad. I, however, didn't understand what the policeman meant when he said my brother had passed. I remember thinking "passed what, passed through where?" I assumed my brother had been arrested, but couldn't figure out why they would send someone to the house to tell us. While my dad went to get paper and a pen I asked the policeman what he had said, like some little girl who's parents were forgetting to tell her what was going on. The whole world was suddenly moving very slowly, but the sound of rushing water was everywhere. The policeman at the door didn't have any details, so he gave my dad the phone number for the Iowa City Police so they could tell him what was going on. My dad stood at the kitchen phone, struggling to write with one hand while I read, upside down from the other side of the counter. When he wrote the word "homicide" I stopped reading and sat on the stairs. My mom walked calmly by and I told her Mike had been murdered. Now it was her turn to ask me to repeat myself.

I don't remember as clearly how the rest of the day went. We abandoned the idea of a morning walk, but we did take one that evening when the tension started to feel unbearable and we all needed to get out of the house. Pavlina spent a lot of time alone in the highchair coloring or refusing to eat whatever we could find on hand to feed her. For the first time ever she turned down lunch and asked for a nap. We started the business of making phone calls to family which seemed to take all day. At several points all three of us were on our cell phones and the land line would ring with no one to answer. I felt dazed, and exhausted, numb one moment, sobbing the next. My dad was kind enough to never mention all the snot and tears I was to get on his shirts over the next few days.

Sometime that afternoon I turned into my hyper active organizer self who worked full tilt with no need for rest or food and kept my composure by keeping so busy that I didn't have time to fall apart. I started researching funeral homes and cremation online, calling the medical examiners and the police to find Mike's body and figure out how to get it back after the autopsy. After a frustrating series of phone calls where I nearly yelled "my brother was just murdered--cut me some slack!" at a cop so he would stop being rude, I was able to get my long-lost sister notified of Mike's death. Then my emotions were further roiled when she called and I got to talk to her on the phone for the first time since I was eight. I got Scott a plane ticket that got him to the airport Monday morning just in time for his mom to pick him up as she drove by on her way to Iowa City to pick up Pavlina. They arrived at the house in Iowa City as I finished packing Mena's suitcase and Scott had just enough time to transfer her car seat to his mom's car before we had to say our goodbyes and start making the rounds of funeral homes so Mike wouldn't have to spend the night in the morgue. I was able to find Mike's cat, Smoke, and get her transferred to a vet for boarding over the phone while we drove from funeral home to funeral home. We made arrangements for Mike with the last funeral home and had time to visit Smoke on our way to Mike's apartment to get him some clothes to be cremated in. And that is where hyper organized Heather gave way.

I had not been to Mike's new apartment so I was not prepared for what I saw. From reading the newspapers we had learned that he died in the communal kitchen which, it turned out, was right outside Mike's door. His friends and apartment mates had set up a little shrine in front of his door with beer cans and cigarettes, candles, fruit, incense, and messages and drawings done in oil pastels. Someone had posted a life size picture of his face on his door that looked like it had been taken with a web cam. It made it seem as though Mike was looking at you from the other side of the door. And below that someone had painted the word "DEAD" in huge black letters. Suddenly this was very real. All the sadness and loss I had been hiding behind the business rushed out and overwhelmed me. There was a red X drawn on the floor just past my feet. I wondered if that marked the spot where his head had lain as the man who strangled him had then attempted CPR to no avail.

The next few days seemed unreal. When people asked how I was doing I would tell them that when I was numb it seemed too easy and I wished I could feel something, then seeing Mike's apartment, his body before it was cremated or something similar would trigger emotions that were so strong and unpleasant that I would wish for the numbness back. We had amazing support from our friends in the form of company when we needed it most, enough food to keep us from having to cook a single meal even with a house full of family, refreshments for the memorial service, storage space for Mike's belongings and help moving them there.



There may be a long road ahead since none of us knows how long the murder trial will last or how much more attention the press will pay. I suppose Scott and I are lucky to live far away since living in Iowa City would make it harder to move on. At the same time the distance and the fact that Mike and I never talked on the phone makes his death seem unreal. I have to remember seeing Mike's body laid out on a table with a pink lamp not quite hiding his unnatural colouring or I could easily think it was one of those bad dreams that leave their impression long after you wake up.