Milkman learns lots of other things, too.
While Morrison tied together many of the mysteries presented throughout the novel, the ending is still quite ambiguous. Milkman does however, get his childhood wish of just being able to fly away. I think that Morrison ended the book as she did because it did not matter who died, and it would have taken away from the larger picture she was trying to convey. Milkman had learned of his heritage, and the reasons that his relatives behaved the way the did. He began to want to know what his parents had went through, so he could see them as the people they truly were.