an alaskan bush pilot delivered the news to russel s father jim who was in the wilderness hunting and unreachable by phone. he said your son s dead. to i had to say, of course, which one? and russel and i mean, he didn t know a whole lot about anything other than he knew it was important to get me out of there. russel s brother, matt, was the last to know. he, too, had been out of cell phone range for several days while vacationing in british columbia. we drove across the border and my phone had a seizure and it started buzzing for every voice mail message and text message that had been sent and it was matt, call me. matt, call me. matt, call me. within days of his death, russel douglas far-flung family reunited on whidbey island. we rallied around brenna. we re sleeping on the room. she stayed in her bedroom a lot. she definitely seemed to be sad.