Mialkowski Family News

I, for one, would like to truly show my thanks to my wife and my child, for putting up with me and my antics! We had to have lunch/dinner at our house this year with just the 3 of us because Lily has an ear infection and I have a snuffly nose. That’s OK! Katherine had us buy a fresh (not frozen) turkey the other day and that bad boy cooked up in 2 hours and 15 minutes flat! Needless to say, it had some counter time to “mature” while Katherine made us some wonderful sides, i.e. shredded beet sautee with apples, delicious – no MSG – stuffing,  and Italian green  beans. It was all very tasty! Oh, what? I forgot to mention desert? Why, yes, my wife also baked both, a pecan pie and a pumpkin (no, scratch that, Paula Deen calls it a Thanksgiving) pie. Good work to all on this day’s work! I’m taking a few days off to enjoy this meal.

Well, we got back to Georgia yesterday late afternoon. (5:30pm).  On Saturday, Nov 7th, I was notified by strangers that my mother’s other son (my brother I guess some would say) had died.  I was given his case number for the Cook County’s Medical Examiner’s Office.  On Monday, Nov 9th, I rented a mid-sized SUV so we can go up there and check things out.  I knew we would be stopping by my friend Mark’s house in Wisconsin to pick up some of my mother’s boxes that she had in her studio welfare apartment in Elmwood Park, Illinois which was a directly adjacent suburb of Chicago.  Mark and Sherry (Mark’s significant other) were gracious enough to let me store boxes at their house. I had rented a trailer to bring back some larger items a few years ago too.  Anyways, we left Georgia Tuesday afternoon (2pm to be exact) and headed north up to Horse Cave, Kentucky where we stayed at the Horse Cave Motel ($40).  It’s pretty much the exact half-way point between Atlanta and Chicago.  We left the next morning (Wednesday) and got into Chicago probably around 3pm or 4pm.  We headed straight to the CCMEO so I can provide a positive I.D.  Nowadays, you don’t have to go into room to view dead people. They position a video camera over the deceased and display it in a viewing room on a LCD or PLASMA widescreen TV.  I had been told he was found in a decomposing state and I was not able to provide a positive I.D. because of that.  We left and went to our hosts, Larry and Bambi who put us up for the next couple of nights.  I did have an e-mail that contained a picture of the deceased and our mother dating as recent as 10-30-2009 so I printed that out (in color) and the next day we went back to the CCMEO and I asked Katherine (my wife) to help and see if she can I.D. him or not.  She did say it was him, but I needed to be really sure so I asked the Chicago Police Department to follow up and proceed with finger printing him.  A day later the detective called me and confirmed that it was him.  At that point I was able to go to my mother who is in a nursing home, due to her stroke which caused her to be blind, and let her know that his death had been confirmed.  So basically, that’s what we’ve been up to the past week.