The Worst Night EVER

Friday, June 14th, 2013 is a day I will never forget.

Lets begin on the evening of Thursday, June 13th. We were visiting my parents in northern Idaho. We had gone up to spend a week with them and then we would all drive to Boise where we would meet my sister who was driving over from Seattle and attend my cousin Brett's graduation party from West Point. My brother, Brad, had taken the next day off of work and driven home and eaten dinner with us since we would be leaving for Boise the next morning. After dinner, my mom and I were in her sewing room working on figuring out the serger I had received from my Grandpa Huffman that had belonged to my Grandma Huffman who had passed away about 5.5 months prior. Jared was wanting attention so we assigned Brad the duty of entertaining him. Brad took him around the whole and would lift him up to all of the light switches so he could turn on and off the lights. At one point they ended up downstairs where we were and Jared was bugging us so I told my brother to take Jared somewhere else. That was the last thing I remember telling my brother. Brad decided to go to bed early because he had to get up and go check some test plots the next morning before heading to Boise and he was a little behind on sleep since he had gone to a conference in Pendleton, OR that week. Both my mom and I commented on how tired he looked.

The next morning I got up and on the way downstairs I walked by Brad’s room and heard twangy music coming from his room. Brad normally didn’t listen to that type of music so I said, “What are you doing?” There was no response, but this wasn’t unusual since he enjoyed ignoring me anyway (we still acted like little kids around each other). We busily got ready to leave for Boise and about half an hour before we were going to leave (I think it was 8:30 am), my mom started asking where Brad was. We knew he had a little work to do that morning, and he also liked going for walks in the woods, so nobody had really wondered where he was until this point. He often would go out in the woods without telling anybody so it wasn’t unusual that we didn’t know where he was. What was unusual though was that there wasn’t a dirty cereal bowl in the sink from him that morning.

I grabbed the last thing from my room as my mom went into his room and found him laying in his bed. My dad was coming down the hall as well. My mom was very confused because he normally is up by 6:00 am. I was outside putting the last thing in the car when I heard my mom scream. I came inside and Nate told me to go upstairs because there was something wrong with my brother. I went upstairs and my mom was just outside the door of his room and said, “Brad is dead.” I went into his room and my dad was kneeling next to his bed examining him. I yelled, "Brad!" and hit his foot. My dad has basic EMT training (or something) and he said that he had been gone several hours and that there was nothing we could do. We called the sheriff's office and they sent a deputy and the coroner up, and asked if we wanted and ambulance. My dad knew an ambulance wouldn’t be able to help us.

It is a 20-30 minute drive from town to my parents’ house so it would be a little bit before the coroner and deputy arrived so we started making calls. Since there is no cell phone service at my parents’ house, I went across the driveway to my grandpa’s, told him what happened, and used his phone to call my sister. My mom had already gotten a hold of her and she was quite upset. I had Jared in my arms the whole time. He was quite confused about what was going on, but was being very well behaved. We talked with my grandpa a little bit and he said he would call the Lewiston relatives while I went back to my parents’.

Soon the deputy arrived, Rick Miller (he knows our family and when he heard who had passed away, insisted that he come instead of the person who had originally been assigned to come), and did a quick look at him and had no clues as to a cause of death. The coroner arrived and asked us several questions and examined him and also had no clues and recommended a detailed autopsy. The coroner estimated that Brad passed away between 11pm and 1am on June 13-14. The coroner and deputy stayed there a while until the guy from Pine Hills Funeral Chapel arrived to take his body away. The guy from the funeral chapel actually happened to be the coroner a few years before when my Grandpa Seeley died in the middle of the night at his home.

Nate flew back to Utah that Sunday (which was Father’s Day) because he had to go back to work. The next week was a blur as we were preparing for a funeral and making decisions that we didn’t want to make. In many ways it didn’t seem real. It seemed like Brad was just somewhere else and he would be coming back. In other ways, it was very real. My body felt so weak. I didn’t sleep at all the first night. I couldn’t eat, but my bodily functions were in hyperactive mode (sorry…tmi…but it helps to understand how I was feeling). We went to Moscow and visited his apartment and cat, went to his work and saw his desk, did a few administrative things at the University of Idaho to get his diploma, and the whole time we were wondering how this could have happened. We went to the funeral home and made preparations for his funeral and made decisions such as what to do with his body. We made trips into town almost every day for various things. We had to go to the store and get child-proof door knob covers because Jared kept opening the door and going outside by himself and we were so distracted that we wouldn’t even notice. Jared also came down with roseola and had a fever of 103 for 3 days. We had to make another trip to town to take him to the doctor.

Brad’s body was transported to Washington State University where they did a very detailed autopsy with forensic pathologists and found no clues as to why he passed away. They did a toxicology blood screening, which they expected to be normal since he didn't show any signs of being poisoned, and the results were normal. Then they examined his heart with an electron scanning microscope to see if they can see if there was an electrical problem. They believe they found enough evidence to say the cause of death was a heart disrhythmia. What caused it? We don’t know. There are several potential syndromes, but with no family history of sudden death from heart arrhythmias, it is likely not one of those. Since then my dad and sister have had detailed heart evaluations and they didn’t find anything that is known to cause sudden death. What is really strange is that the night Brad died, everybody in the house slept extremely well. Normally my mom has allergy issues that keep her up at night and Nate is a very light sleeper and doesn't sleep well with Jared in the room or in new places. My room is just down the hall from Brad so he passed very peacefully otherwise we would have heard him.

The entire community was so kind. People brought us so much food, that we unfortunately couldn’t taste because our bodies were in survival mode. It seemed like everybody was in shock just as much as we were. We spent a lot of time just sitting and thinking or talking, but not really focusing on anything in particular. At one point we ended in my dad's teepee telling Brad stories and laughing because of all the good memories.

Somehow we made it to the funeral 8 days after he died. We had a very large turnout. Everybody was just as shocked as we were it seemed. Again, it didn’t seem like Brad was really gone. To me it felt like he was going to show up at some point. It felt more like a surprise party for him that he never showed up to. The mood was definitely sad, but there were a few good laughs as well as we remembered Brad. After the funeral, my mom’s siblings and mom came up to our house and we had a get together. It was the first time that I had seen all of them together since my grandpa’s funeral in 2009. The next day my sister went back to Seattle and my parents, Nate, Jared, and I went for a drive on Teaken Butte (which was my parents’ anniversary). The day after that Nate, Jared, and I headed back to Utah to try and get back to “normal” life.

Here is his obituary that was in the paper.

This is the last photo we have of Brad, taken a few days before he died.