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My cousin Tom would have been 78 years old today. He was not a “Norwegian Bachelor Farmer”, he was a “Norwegian Bachelor House Painter”.  When I lived in Upsala, I owned a house that was built in 1892 as the Swedish Mission Church parsonage.  Most of the siding is original cedar and if you keep it painted; it will last for a long, long time.  Tom was my designated painter. For many years, Tom lived with his parents in a house across the church cemetery. His father, Duke, had died in 2002 and his mother Lee,  Auntie to me, died 11 years later, so in 2019 Tom was living alone.

Living alone has a few disadvantages, one of which is, if you fall and can’t get up, it may be a while before someone finds you.  After a few days of not being able to get Tom on his cell phone, cousin Mike went to check on Tom one Sunday.  Mike called upstairs and Tom answered weakly. At St. Cloud Hospital it was discovered that he had a brain tumor that had caused a seizure that put him on the floor in his upstairs bedroom.  When I got to his hospital room on Monday , he had the three nurses rolling in the aisle.  His personality had been affected by the tumor, and he would not stop talking, calling the nurse whose name was Sara,  “Sister Sara”.  Tom remembered that name from a Clint Eastwood movie.

Because I live in St. Joseph, I usually was the first to visit him. On Wednesday when I got there he was barely breathing.  I put my hand on his chest and said, “hold on Tom, your sister and brothers are on their way”.  We were sure that he would be dying soon.  The next day he opened his eyes and mumbled a greeting to his brother John.  When I got there on Friday morning, he was wide awake and when the nurse heard me talking to him, she came in and asked Tom if he was hungry.  Tom asked for ice cream.  I told him that we all had given up on him and explained that as I understood it, if he chose to live, he would be facing some serious surgery with a high risk.

Tom usual dry sense of humor had returned.  He said:  “I have never died before; I don’t know how to do it”.   Tom decided to have the surgeries.  He had a baseball sized tumor removed two days later.  Tom looked rough, but he chose to fight, and we were all hoping for the best. Tom died later that same month.  We miss him.

“I have never died before; I don’t know how to do it”.  Tom Hagstrom