The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

So you think you have some control. But really, you don't.

He couldn't help glancing at her legs. It wasn't just that they were long and slender and perfectly tapered, or that she had swung one over the other and now tapped the air with a sling-back stiletto, or that they were smooth and tanned and flawless, but that they were bare. Like so many young professional women down here, she did not wear stockings and for a man of his age and tradition, he found that slightly crass and sexy as all get-out.

As I was saying, we Crystal Methodists have some unusual customs and rites when it comes to preparing our loved ones for mortal coil off-shuffling.

My younger brother Leo died of cancer this past Halloween. He was bedridden the last couple of months, but my aged parents and I were somehow able to keep him in his rather small 1-bedroom apartment in North Central Iowa until the very end. We wanted him at home where he could be with his cat and where we could prepare him for the afterlife.

The neat, large farmhouse was different from what he remembered. Even though he had been back for a few months already, it still took him by surprise some mornings: the wide plank, light wood floors, butcher block countertops in the kitchen, cool tones on the walls, books everywhere, fresh coffee brewed by the time he stumbled in from his bedroom. It was a bright house. Clean everywhere, new towels hanging in the bathrooms, even his sheets coming up crisp and changed every few days, his laundry hung in the closet, folded into the dresser.