Dear Marion,

Thank you for your letter. It's been a hectic day,
negotiating with the Wayne County Medical Examiner,
the Cremation Society of Michigan, the superintendent
of Margrit's apartment house, and spending what must
have added up to several hours in telephone conversations
consoling Margrit's various friends.

My own feelings run so deep that I cannot fathom them,
at least not now or not yet. Each one of us is destined
to his or her own death.  My father's death spanned
three long months during which he lay in bed paralysed
with Parkinsons Disease while his mind recapitulated
the struggles and the agonies of his childhood. My
mother's body outlived her mind for two and a half
years, during which her recognition even of her children
was only perfunctory. On more than one occasion she
thought it was time for her to take the train to Berlin.

Margrit's death was probably the quickest and least
painful. Although the Wayne County Medical Examiner
hasn't yet ventured a diagnosis, - I told him I had
no need for an exploratory autopsy, but that as an
ex-medical examiner myself, I respected his obligation
to what he deemed proper, - my conclusion is that Margrit
died of acute massive pulmonary embolism, in consequence 
of just such risk-taking as I had often discussed with her.

My interpretation is that the return flight from
Ft Lauderdale to Detroit which requires as much as 7 hours,
even without delays, was much protracted by the winter
storms on December 19.  It's likely that Margrit slept
much if not most of the time, making her legs even more
immobile than they would otherwise have been. Perhaps
most adverse of all, since Margrit had requested a
wheel chair on the flight from Boston to TriCities,
she quite likely also requested a wheel chair for the
plane change in Chicago or Baltimore, on the flight to
Detroit, thus avoiding  even the limited exercise of 
walking from one plane to the next. A recent study found 
that the rate of  pulmonary embolism from deep venous 
thrombosis is for a matter of weeks as much as 70 times 
as great in post-operative patients as in persons who 
have not recently been operated on. Schiller's verse 
came true: 
Und setzet ihr nicht das Leben ein, 
nie wird euch das Leben gewonnen sein!

Margaret and I just looked at Klemens' 29 recent
photos of Margrit. If you didn't receive that many,
and would like to see them, please let me know,
and I'll send them to you.

Jochen