Michelle, the best of the best

An Outdoorsman’s Journal

Hello friends, Before I write this week’s column I have to tell you something so that you understand what is likely going to happen until early August. Tragedy has struck in a horrible way. My beautiful partner in life, Michelle Chiaro, died unexpectedly on June 15 from sepsis, which is a bacterial invasion of the body.

I am a wreck, my family has come from all over the country and my “rock,” my daughter Selina, came home from Montana to help for a week. Here is where I need your help. Please bear with me for a few weeks. Together, with several of my papers and Selina, we have picked some really good columns from the 1,732 that we had to choose from to cover me for a month. Each week I will give an update and a brief description, take care of business and grieve.

Michelle and I first spoke on the phone in March of 2017. Our conversation was a blast. Michelle had 40 acres and horses near Horicon and was an ICU nurse at a hospital in Hartford. What stands out from that call is that 15 minutes into it she said she had a requirement and that was that I drove a full-size pickup truck and would I please go out and take a picture of it. I did and I was in like flynn.

The first two years of our time together, Michelle would spend one or two nights a week at my house. We would garden, ice fish, cut wood and she would sit in a stand next to me as I bow hunted. Her favorite of all of this was to run the bear baits.

Just as important was about four trips a year that she would go on such as winter camping and ice fishing, no matter what the conditions, bluegill fishing and camping, walleye fishing on Green Bay, turkey hunting and, last year, bowhunting.

Michelle had never been introduced to hunting or fishing before we met, but she would do her research, buy the best gear and away we went.

Last year was her introduction to bowhunting. A very good man gave her a crossbow, I built her a permanent ladder stand next to the house and she shot her crossbow with great regularity. On our food plot I sat with her 22 times and she did connect on a large doe, which was her first deer.

After Michelle moved to Necedah (she purchased a house one mile as the crow flies from mine), she insisted that once a week we had a “date night.” Long ATV rides, campfires, slow “just idling” truck rides in the nearby refuges and state public lands and an absolute ton of laughter were the norm.

When we first met, Michelle did not know a tomato plant from a potato plant, but she had a desire to learn and an incredible work ethic. By last summer, she was a fantastic helper both growing and putting up food.

When we camped, she insisted on doing all of the cooking and most of the task of taking down camp. Every second of our camping trips was as good as it gets.

Socially every doctor, nurse, high school friend, neighbor, and family member would say she was the most positive and interesting person that you could meet. She simply could not go negative.

Technologically I am not well versed. I have some sort of mental issue with it and anything I did not understand, which is lots, Michelle simply took care of.

Michelle loved me like there is no tomorrow. From day one she named me “My Hot Dish” on her phone and told me that she was my retirement. She was 11 years younger than me and though our relationship was a work in progress, she never faltered.

When tragedy struck on June 14, the ambulance took her to Mile Bluff Hospital in Mauston. I was told that she was very ill, she was put in a coma and med flighted to Meriter Hospital in Madison.

The doctor on the helicopter called me and told me it was not good, the incredible staff at Meriter did their best and her children Colby, Kylie, Sophie, Johnny and myself were with her. Twelve hours after she arrived, her parents Vince and Tony Chiaro arrived from the Little Rock, Ark., area after driving straight through. Vince and Tony are in their mid 80s and not in good health, but Michelle held on for them.

I sat next to her, held her hand, rubbed her and cried almost constantly. Most importantly I talked to her.

This experience lasted for 24 hours at Meriter and the staff really tried to save her and I marveled as I thought what they were doing is exactly what Michelle did for 26 years.

I drove home literally through the Mauston tornado and had no cares if it killed me. It has been eight days and I am as lost as I was when her heart quit beating.

My family stays with me, I garden, sit by the fire, run the bear baits, go for ATV rides, and am never fully happy. I think I can swing this as, literally, billions of people have before me.

Please just give me a few weeks to figure it out! I love you Matilda! Mark

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