Tragedy Up Close
I’m sitting with a business associate at lunch at Fiddler’s Elbow in Sugar House. On the way in, I had grabbed a City Weekly from the sidewalk newspaper box. I set the paper beside me on the table.
A twentysomething woman approaches me with another publication in her hand: In Utah, which is The Salt Lake Tribune’s “let’s try like hell to attract younger readers” weekly supplement. “Which one is the best paper?” the woman asks, pointing to the paper in her hand, and then to the City Weekly on the table.
My lunch partner does not hesitate. “City Weekly,” he says.
I have to tell you, I am a professional busybody. I talk to everyone. I ask them personal questions, I often “interview” total strangers. My family gives me grief for it, but I can’t help it. I worked for so long on my newspaper column, and before that, news stories. It was always tough to pass up a possible column idea. And I love people. I want to know all about them, all the time.
I start talking to this woman. She lives in Phoenix. I wonder if she’s only visiting town or has she recently moved here? I’m not just being nosy. She may be looking for an apartment. I’m prepared to point her toward the classifieds.
Her voice catches a bit. “I’m sort of visiting,” she says. “My, uh, grandparents were the people who froze to death this week.”
Anyone who read a newspaper this past week, tuned in to radio or watched the local news knows this story. The Palmers, married for 56 years, died together last week when their car got stuck in the snow on a remote mountain road in central Utah. Their old Cadillac had no heater. They had no provisions for cold weather. Rescue teams found them within a short distance of each other, about three miles from the car, dead of exposure.
Their granddaughter from Phoenix points me to her mother, sitting at a table about four feet from mine. I approach her, tell her how sorry I am for her loss. Suddenly, I am embracing a woman I’ve never met. I hold on for a couple of seconds.
“I am so sorry,” I whisper in her ear. “This is so sad.”
Her eyes fill with tears.
I ask her if she knows anything more about how her parents died.
“The media has been wonderful,” she says. “They reported it accurately.” Her parents were both in their 70s, and her dad sometimes had a problem with dozing at the wheel on longer trips. That frightened her mother, who wanted to avoid driving through Spanish Fork Canyon — the narrow, winding, U.S. highway known for horrific crashes and dubbed “Utah’s death strip.” So they took a side road, seldom traveled in winter and nearly 7,000 feet at its summit. Their car got stuck in snow and they apparently started walking to get help.
Help was 40 miles away. They made it three miles on foot.
The Palmers’ daughter tells me, with her hand on a glass of beer, “we’re the other side of the family.” In Utah, of course, that means you have lapsed on your Mormonism. It may or may not have led to emotional and spiritual distance from your family.
I sense there is plenty of love for this daughter, sister, aunt. She tells me her family is certain her parents died within moments of each other. “They were always together,” she says. “We think mom’s spirit left her body, then went to Dad. She wouldn’t have wanted him to be alone.”
In Mormon culture, such stories are labeled as “faith-promoting.” They have a certain feel to them; a formula. They usually focus on a loved one helping another to pass into the hereafter. They rely heavily on miracles and coincidence. God’s hand is always present.
Growing up Mormon, I heard these stories throughout my young life — in Sunday School lessons and in monthly “fast and testimony” meetings, where church members witnessed to their faith in God, Christ and the Holy Ghost.
I loved these stories 40 years ago; I love them still. I embrace them. I do not question or doubt them. I’ve lost enough loved ones in my life that any explanation or attempt to ease a loss somehow soothes me.
I give this grieving woman’s hand one last squeeze. Then I rejoin my table.
February 3rd, 2007 at 9:25 pm
My dad died a year ago, on the eve of Valentine’s Day, at age 92. (A relative said he wanted to be with Mom for Valentine’s.) My sister and I buried him a few days later with Tom, my Unitarian minister, and nine of my dearest friends. Later we held a memorial service so the folks in the community could pay their respects. Dad had outlived most all of his friends, but there were several neighbors and a few old-timers at the service. I invited anyone who wanted to speak to come forward to share his or her memories of Dad. Louise, a neighbor and member of the local LDS ward, spoke last. She began, with great passion and conviction, to explain how she knew that my parents were now united again and how they were both whole and in perfect health. Her testimony continued for at least five minutes and some people were starting to squirm. There were few other Mormons at the service, so this sort of outpouring was unfamiliar to many. Finally, Louise sat down.
Louise’s husband could not attend the service, though I know he wanted to. John, who once looked like a professional tennis player, was now old and blind and so stooped that he could barely get around the house. He had lost the will to live and was just waiting for God to call him home.
Only two others there that day knew of Louise’s situation. Only two others knew that when she spoke of my dad’s health being restored in heaven, she was thinking of her John.
God bless you, Louise. Even though I don’t believe a bit of it, God bless you just the same.
February 5th, 2007 at 2:02 am
Holly, in your own way, which you so eloquently and realistically do… you have offered comfort to this grieving family. You did the same for me a few years ago when my dear friend Theresa Marie Harris died of domestic violence. Things happen. Pain happens. Reality smacks us in the face of how precious life can be and how quickly a loved one can leave us. Thanks for always being so compassionate to strangers. It is one of your true gifts.