Karen died, mother, with twins—high school juniors. Nick was launched into an unknown universe. For what was life without Karen? Not just his mind amok—although his condition gave essential meaning to the word dysfunctional, it was more a disruption of his soul. With her gone, he had lost his tether to the world. She was more than his heart, even more than simply a spouse. She unleashed him, was a catalyst stirring up within him feelings for which he had no words, even less concepts.

Not merely a soul-mate. Nothing that pedestrian. She had taken him on a journey into the mystery of intimacy. He, right at this moment, has been plucked out of that mystery; cast down not just to Earth from the Sky but into an inner darkness within which he sees no light. He is as if a robot, no, more a puppet whose mistress no longer pulls the strings. He is forlorn; alienated.

Nick walks down the church steps. In some part of his mind he is saying that to himself, “Nick walks down the steps.” He is aware that he is eyeing himself as if a deity, an ex machina entity whom everyone expects has dropped onto the stage in the Final Act to sum up the storyline, to make everyone understand, no, more, feel in their hearts what her life was about.

But Nick Niegsch is a mere mortal—a father, a widower. A wandering soul.

“Son!” My father calls.

“Daughter!” He has mom’s look in his eyes.

They all embrace.

Ah, the special cruelty of Minnesota death. Like Kiev death. Like Eskimo death. Wherever the mystic polar bear roams, there it is always deep January regardless of calendar. Minnesota death is a mystical freezing of the soul and heart beyond understanding. All that is real is as well symbolic—frosted breaths are smoke signals without meaning, leading a lost people flailing for a sign in the blizzard, seeking, “Where is she?” We must augur the Northern Lights!



Twins: seventeen, nearing eighteen.

Sean is the son.

Patricia, the daughter.

Are they ever old enough for the dying?

Nick holds his children close to his heart, his long arms locked on, one to each.

Dad! Each in their own way.

Tongueless in a time of many tongues. People saying things. Condolences. Sorrows. Good Wishes. Sad-happy reminiscences.

Tongues which carve her out. Statues. Bas-reliefs. Hammered in steel. Chipped totems from the North Country. Working. Working. All these good people working to create, to present him with something—but, For what?

“Thank you.”

“Yes, I remember her doing that!”

“Can we ever forget that summer at the lake?”

“She was such a good woman of faith.”

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

“Karen was, was, how can I say it Nick? She was really real. Hell, that’s not what I want to say. See, she was the first one Ruth wanted to tell. That’s it! Not her mother. Not her sisters. No. “Call Karen!” she had ordered—great Prussian General that Ruth is! Ha. Ha. But, “Call Karen!” The first one to tell about the baby. That’s what she was, more than a sister.”

Then he and Ruth burst into tears as Nick consoles them.



2020. Like perfect eye-sight. He can’t stop himself from calculating. Subtracting 2020 minus 1982 equals 38 on her next birthday. Etched on her tombstone. She now no longer in his eye-sight.

The receiving line duty over, Nick watches those members of his family: siblings, cousins. great aunts, who were still anchored to the spot. How many Niegsches were about? More than twenty, for sure. What a crew! Hammerheads. Old tobacco spitting Huns! Fleeing something. Conscription. Poverty. “Poverty of imagination,” that’s what his own Granddad had said. “This is the New World. It’s where you're free to imagine your own future!”

In Minnesota, the Old World Irish and Germans readily shared a romantic imagination. Their intermarrying was hastened by intertwined ancient racial roots and a shared Catholic faith tradition, either Roman or Lutheran. Karen McElroy was pure Irish and a dedicated Roman Catholic. “Faith was her fervor!” Her father first said that at her First Communion. It stuck as her byline. Although a bit of a free spirit in her youth, she had built her marriage and family around the biblical imagination. For her, her husband was the head, she the heart and soul of the family and the marriage.

In so many ways Karen imagined Nick into being. He actually liked explaining that. For him, she was both the keel and rudder of his life. She guided him down the stream of how he came to understand himself as a father: as provider, protector, and head of the family...as he came to understand himself as husband: moral and spiritual exemplar to her and the children...as he came to understand himself as a community leader and as a responsible corporate executive. All their married growth was grounded in the honor, respect, and love Karen offered, heartfelt, through their shared intimacy. “I am the man I am today because of her deep faith in God's plan for men and women, for our family. God is Love and my blessing is that Karen is my Love.”