167. Hospital and Hospice Kindness

John's dad passed away last week. The fellas reflect on the extraordinary kindness that can often come during the most difficult times.

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Jerry, good manners are the glueof society.
Welcome back to the KindnessChronicles, where once again, we
hope to inject the world with adose of the Minnesota.

(00:27):
That it desperately needs.
It has been some time sincewe've, put one of these, uh,
yeah, the microphones are dusty.
One of these, shows together.
Let me explain what's been goingon.
I think some of you, uh, some ofthe listeners are aware, but,
several weeks ago my dad took aspill and I mentioned that, I
think I mentioned that on ourpodcast.
Yeah, you did a couple of weeksago.
You, anyway, he, uh, broke hisneck, ended up, essentially

(00:50):
being paralyzed from the neckdown.
Was taken to Regions Hospital,spent, about 16, 17 days at
Regions Hospital.
Decided to go home, uh, to dohome hospice care.
We did home hospice for aboutfour or five days, and, his
medical needs were just too muchfor us to handle.
Yeah, so we brought him to aplace called Pillars, which is a

(01:11):
hospice, an in-home.
It's a, a, hospice house.
Yes.
Um, and you, Steve, your dad,was there as well?
Yep.
But, uh, he passed away justlast Tuesday, I would like
today's show just to be aboutthe experience that I had.
Yeah.
And I, I don't wanna make thisjust about me, but, uh, it was
really a strangely fulfillingexperience.

(01:34):
Hmm.
Something I never expected..
Really just a, a genuineprivilege to be able to care for
my dad.
Yeah.
Uh, after, you know, he spent 80years caring for us.
Yep.
But, the kindness that my entirefamily experienced really cannot
be overstated.
It was absolutely shockinglyamazing from the folks at

(01:56):
Regions Hospital.
I'll get more into the detailsof that.
But, thank you for, uh, for yourpatience.
Those of you listeners who, uh,have been wondering, when are
they gonna post an, they'reclamoring, the kids are clamming
for another podcast.
I love fact that somebody'sactually clamoring to listen to
us.
I got couple text.
I haven't heard a thing myself.
Yeah, I haven't heard a thing.
Well, you know what?
I've been busy.
You need to, yeah.
You have, you moved recently?

(02:17):
Yeah, a week ago.
Uh, Monday we moved.
So, so you're much closer to us.
This will be a convenient uh,yeah.
I'm a white bear guy now.
My congratulations.
Yeah, it's.
It's really great and, uh, itwas a, it nothing, nothing even
close to what you just wentthrough, John.
Yeah.
But it was a very intense,stressful, probably the most
stressful things.
Stressful things, me and my wifeand kids have ever gone through

(02:39):
my two kids.
Just the moving process, justthe moving, moving out, all of
it.
It was really stressful, but wemade it and we, we absolutely
loved the place.
How long were you in the housethat you were in before?
Uh, nine years.
Okay.
10.
10 years and, uh, 11 years tothe house before that.
So I've been in Cottage Grovefor 21 years.
So you've accumulated a lot ofstuff that you Yeah.
When you, you get a biggerhouse, you just fill it with
more stuff.
Yes.

(03:00):
So now we've got a littlesmaller house.
It's actually not smaller, butit's, it's set up differently.
And, uh, storage.
It's an older house, sostorage-wise, it does not have
what we had.
So it's been quite a challenge.
We are purging like crazy still,even though we purged before we
left.
It's liberating though, isn'tit?
It is, it is.
I really, I love it.
I'm very excited.
But, um, I walk to and from worknow.

(03:20):
What?
Wow.
Nine minutes to walk home fromwork.
Oh my.
It's, it's fascinating.
Yeah.
You become like a one with theearth, like healthy guy.
I, I thought you had to driveplaces and take customers out or
something.
Well, I have to go, when I go towork, I ride with, if I'm going
to a project, I ride with peopleon site, but, um, oh, perfect.
I don't actually do that.
Nice.
You can, I meet with, I meet,it's all just sales inside, but

(03:41):
then sometimes, uh, I'm just onthe phone, but we have to do
projects and I have to go outand I'm on the roof putting
stuff together, but I am soclose to work and so, so happy
and.
We've got finally gatheredeverything back to our house and
we are just still sortingthrough.
But it's And you sold the otherhouse?
Oh yeah, we sold the house inJune.
Okay.
Yeah.
So you're not sitting on twomortgage payments?
No, that's always, uh, no,that's always a little

(04:03):
stressful.
It's great.
So I've been through someintense stuff, but nothing
compares to losing your dad.
Yeah.
And I'm sorry, John.
Thank you.
Thank you.
It, it's been a very oddexperience.
Yeah.
Uh, the, the first time I reallyfelt it was after the gophers
came back to, uh, to win theirgame on Saturday.
You know, I usually, I wouldcall my dad and he'd have some

(04:23):
sarcastic comment about PJ Fleckor something like that, so I
will always miss that.
But.
Let me just start with, theexperience that we had at
Regions Hospital.
So, as I said, dad fell, brokehis neck, the White Bear Lake
Fire Department showed up andthey said, where do you want to
take him?
And I said, I don't know.
We usually go to St.
John's.

(04:43):
And they looked at me and theylike.
We gotta take him to to regions.
'cause it's a level one traumacenter.
Yes.
This, this seems like a spinalcord injury.
'cause he couldn't feelanything.
Oh, God Couldn't feel anythingfrom his neck down.
Oh, frightening.
So started with those guys.
Those, uh, the paramedics wereabsolutely amazing.
The care that they showed him,you know, they, they were

(05:06):
concerned about his neck, doingmore damage.
So it secure him very, verywell.
Right.
They had to secure him and.
I took him down to, uh, toregions.
How did they calm him?
Like that's a stressfulsituation.
I'm curious throughout thesestages as you tell your story,
how the words people used andhow they defused the situation.
Just you, you know, I, my, mydad still as much like freaked

(05:28):
out as he was, he still what Isaw outta my dad that was more.
Meaningful to me than anythingwas just the gratitude that he
showed to every single personthat cared for him.
Wow.
Like he was so grateful for thecare that these guys were
providing him.
And he must have said it, youknow, six to eight times,
really.
And that, but he also still hada sense of humor.

(05:51):
So we're going over, you know,we're on County Road E, and
clearly the county hasn't takencare of that road.
Oh.
And we're hitting all thesebumps.
And my dad says something like.
How many railroad tracks are youpeople gonna find?
You know, here he is in, in, youknow, having no feeling and
terrible pain in his neck and inhis shoulders.

(06:12):
Hopefully he's in shock and itwas protecting him a little bit.
Who knows?
Yeah.
Just how grateful he was on theway down there.
So then we get to the emergencyroom and immediately there was
like 15 people in the roomcaring for him.
You know, so I kind of poppedout of their head, called my mom
and said, Hey, because Ihappened to be with them when he
fell.
Oh.
Oh, really?

(06:32):
Yeah.
So here's, here's the guilt thatI've been dealing with.
Oh boy.
Here we go.
I was on a work call and my jobwas to make sure that if he
needed anything, he got it.
Well, he got up with his walkerto go into the bathroom.
The walker goes into thebathroom.
I'm in the other room on a phonecall from work.

(06:52):
It goes into the bathroom.
The, uh, the wheels slip on the,oh, no.
Oh no.
And he falls back and gobackwards.
Okay.
He fell backwards and you know,it's like honest to God, so
under my watch is when you fall,and he was apologetic to me.
I should have listened.
I should have listened.
I'm like, Jesus, dad, just don'tworry about that.

(07:13):
That's another thing that I'velearned.
I used Jesus and God way toomuch in my talk.
Really?
You kind of discovered that whenwe met with, oh, I got
discovered it because when wewere meeting with the, uh,
deacon Frank at St.
Uh St.
Jude's, my wife said, do youknow how often you say Jesus?
And God and Frank never saidanything.
You know, Frank, Frank, theTank, absolutely love Frank.

(07:34):
He's a great guy.
Tank.
He's friends with Nick Frank.
He is friends with Nick and he'salso the, uh, the
brother-in-law, one of myfavorite people in the world,
Mr.
Burns.
Okay.
Mike Burns.
Mr.
Burns excellent.
Who is a listener.
Hi Mike.
I know, I know Mike Burns.
You know Mike Burns?
Yeah.
Mike.
I coached with Anne.
Oh God.
You know this?
Mm-hmm.
Ann was my sister's best friend.
Oh my God.
Let's, this worlds arecolliding.

(07:54):
Yes.
All my stars.
Anyway.
Um, so then we end up on the,uh, the trauma floor at, at, uh,
I'm not sure she's a listener.
We end up on the trauma floorat, uh, Regents Hospital, which
is the 11th floor.
And just those people areangels.
Yeah, absolute angels.
And like one of the head traumanurses pokes her head in and she

(08:17):
looks in at us and it was mysister's best friend from eighth
grade, Dina.
And I'm like, Dina, what thehell are you doing here?
And she's like a big shot nursedown there.
So she kept coming up and makingsure that we were cared for.
Oh boy.
But Nurse Nick.
Nurse Mike, my dad referred tohim as Magic Mike, not knowing

(08:39):
what that actually meant.
And both Nick and Mike are thesereally handsome nurses.
Yeah.
And you know, my wife and I arelike, it's almost like Chicago
met around here.
Like it's everybody that workshere that attractive.
I mean, it's just nuts.
Turns out magic Mike.
Right outta high school was arunway model in Paris and Milan.

(09:00):
What?
Yes.
Oh, funny.
Yes.
And you know, uh, some of thebest nurses come from modeling
some I I apparently.
Um, and the reason he got outtamodeling is a story that, uh,
we'll save for another day, butit's pretty crazy.
Um, so regions, the people atRegions, regions at the people
at regions were incredible.
And the palliative care docs,these trauma docs that, you

(09:21):
know, kind of talked us throughall this and the.
Spiritual advisors that they hadand the social workers.
I cannot say enough about thekindness and just the compassion
that those people showed, ifyou're a person that's got some
money and you want to throw itat Regions Hospital, I would
suggest that you do that becauseman, they put it to good use.
Yeah.
It's, it's a great place.

(09:42):
We had both our kids there and,uh, and speaking of palliative
care, that's just something Ilearned about and it's a whole
different oh boy angle and it's,it's almost like.
Uh, relieving to know thatthere's a whole focus.
I didn't really understand anyof that, but when my dad was
dying, it was the same thing.
It was like they are now focusedon, they're not trying to make
him better.
They're trying to make himcomfortable.

(10:03):
Comfortable.
Yep.
That's a whole differentAbsolutely.
Area of medicine that I didn'tunderstand.
It was super, and it's superimportant.
It's, and it's not justphysically comfortable, it's
also emotionally comfortable.
Absolutely.
And spiritually comfortable.
And they did an amazing job withthat.
I mean, they checked all thoseboxes.
One of the things that we talkedabout in our prep session before
this was, you know, as a, as ahuman being, we spend a lot of

(10:27):
time preparing for the birth ofa child.
Yeah.
Preparing for the schooldistrict, the house that you're
gonna buy, the college that yourkids are gonna go to, the job
that you're gonna have hours ofthinking about it and talking
about it.
I just dunno how much timepeople think about.
This part of the journey?
Yeah.
For your parents or yourself?
For your parents, or foryourself.
Yeah.
I mean, my, nobody wants to I,that's right.

(10:48):
We wanna just keep it all goingand make everything happy.
And all I can say is thank Godthat there are people out there
that are prepared to help usthrough that journey.
Especially the people at Pillarswithout question.
Yeah.
And we're gonna get to pillarsin a second.
Yeah.
But the other thing that wasbrought to my attention that I
could not have been.
More proud of is every time mymother mentioned that we were,

(11:08):
we were originally thinkingabout bringing my dad back to
the Masonic home because he hadsuch a great experience and to a
person, social workers, nurses,doctors, many of them would say,
well, how are you even aware ofthe Masonic home?
And my mom would say, and it wasalways very funny, she goes,
well, I know somebody that worksthere.
Wow.
Oh, who works there?

(11:29):
Well, my son works there.
What do you do?
Well, I have a really niceoffice there.
That's kind of what I would say.
But the, so they were, they weresaying good things about it.
Every single one of them.
And knowing you were, everysingle one of'em said, that's
pretty cool.
If you can get into Masonic,that is the place to go that's
gonna feel good.
It just totally amplified.
Absolutely.
For years, I'd been hearing, andit's all been hearsay, what

(11:51):
wonderful care that we have.
I was a beneficiary.
My family was a beneficiary atthe end of July this year when
my dad spent nine days there.
Incredible care.
Um, you know, I'm sure that,that it helped that I was a guy
that worked there, but I don'tthink that, I think that that's
just standard operatingprocedure.
Yeah, I'm sure The physicaltherapist that we had that came

(12:11):
up said, oh, my best friend andI did our internship there.
She got a job there and I didn'tget one.
And I'm still upset because sheabsolutely loves it.
She's been there for 14 years.
Oh boy.
And.
I'm like, you know, we'reprobably always hiring.
I don't know, but I, that's whatI hear.
But just, I was so justoverwhelmed with pride for the

(12:33):
place that I happened to, towork.
Fantastic work.
So that was very cool.
It's gotta feel good.
We, uh, brought dad home andtried to do home hospice for
about four days, which was, uh,an incredible experience in the
sense that.
You know, we had to care for allof his needs.
Yeah.
Not just the feeding, but thewound care and the changing of

(12:53):
the pads.
Yes.
All this stuff and every time wemoved him, it was excruciating
pain.
And it took like three or fourpeople to, to, to do this.
Was it just family doing thatpart?
It took family and some friends.
Okay.
No family and some friends.
So they didn't provide a, astaff person?
No.
We had a hospice nurse that cameout twice in those two days and
they were wonderful.

(13:14):
They kind of educate you though.
Well, and they also, you know,they took care of kind of the
high end wound care.
Okay.
You know,'cause of the diabetes,you know, you don't heal like
you should.
Right.
And he had all these wounds, youknow, he had that.
Paper, skin, you know, that, uh,cray paper skin.
Yeah.
Really thin, you know, take careof your skin people.
'cause good old God.
Take care of your skin.

(13:34):
Take care of your feet.
Get out and move around.
Yeah.
You know, I don't think my dadwas ever a guy that, you know.
Officially went out andexercised.
My dad wasn't either, you know,he, he worked, but he, you know,
he worked at a DA on a desk andyou know, his exercise was
getting back and forth from therefrigerator.
You know, I mean, the greatestinvention was the remote control

(13:55):
for my dad'cause he was a pro atworking the remote control.
But.
You know, it really did, itreally kind of opened my eyes
to, you know, care.
So I, I have a question aboutwhen you had him home care, did
the kids help out too?
Was everyone, absolutely.
Everyone was involved.
Everyone kind of rallied.
It's good for your family.
Yeah, we, so I spent, I wouldspend every night in his

(14:17):
bedroom.
Yeah.
So did I, and I was like the,the, the, the, the backup for
when they needed movement or,you know.
Yeah.
And then my sister and my wifeand my.
Children and my nephews all sortof wrote, and my brother-in-law,
Chad, who was an absolute angel,we would, we would have a team

(14:39):
of four people there everynight.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We rotated too like that.
That's the way you gotta do it.
And, and it was hard.
It's overwhelming because, youknow, you, you sleep with one
eye open every time you hear anoise.
Yep.
Yes, you're listening to it andresponding to it well, and your
mind is probably just projectingwhat's about to come and, oh
God.
Yeah.
What's, what's the next step anddo I need to be ready for Right.

(14:59):
Praying and praying over them,or what's gonna happen next,
right.
Yeah.
So after about four days ofthat, um, my mom had a friend
who had been cared for atPillars.
So she made the phone call andsaid, you know, is there any
availability?
And they said, no, we're full,but we'll put you on the waiting
list.
And, uh.
Thankfully, within 12 hours wegot a call that said we got an

(15:21):
opening, and if you're, if youwant the room, you can have it.
So it was a Saturday morningand,, we had, a guy who does
transport for a company thatdoesn't do transportation on the
weekend.
Uh, came and picked him up.
Mm.
Um, you know, we paid him and mydad being the guy that he is,

(15:42):
he's, you know, he kind ofwhispers to me, he goes, you got
a hundred bucks to tip this guy.
I'm like, I don't have any cash.
Fortunately, my son Jack had ahundred dollars on him.
Oh.
I still got a Venmo on that.
Trained him.
Trained him well, no, but thefact that your dad is aware of
it and watching for that kind ofstuff, he, that's the guy that
he was, he was so grateful andthis guy that drove us from his

(16:03):
house to pillars.
Could not have been a more justlovely human being.
Just, just that guy helped gethim outta the house.
Did it?
Yep.
Yep.
So he, he came with a stretcher.
Okay.
And we moved him onto thestretcher and, and into this van
that's built for a stretcher andfor transport.
Yeah.
Allegiance Transport was thename of the company.
Not to put you on the spot, butgive me an example of when you

(16:26):
say he couldn't be morewonderful.
What, what, do you remember anyexperiences from what he did?
Absolutely.
I mean, he, he, you know, justtalked about, uh.
You know, how long that he hadbeen doing this and um, you know
how he absolutely loves thework.
He was a businessman for manyyears and just wasn't fulfilled
by it.
And, you know, it was so justengaging you in conversation,

(16:46):
engaging my dad, you know?
Yeah.
You know, God, I'm sorry wemissed that.
Uh, that we hit that bump andOh, you know, just so great.
Just so great.
Yeah.
And you know, the fact that heworked on the weekend and this
place does not do weekendtransports.
And he said, sure, I'll, youknow, I'll come in and work and
Oh, that's awesome.
Yeah.
You know, I'm sure he got paidright, but just went the extra

(17:08):
mile and did something extramile.
I mean, it was just the, thepeople that are in that line of
work are just angels.
Mm-hmm.
So then we end up at pillars.
And you had a pillars experiencewith your dad.
Yeah.
Why don't you tell us about yourexperience December, 2017?
Uh, we, we brought him in.
He was there for.
Maybe overnight.
It wasn't very long.
But he, he, once he got there,'cause we had him at Home Care

(17:30):
as well, and we were, you know,staying there in rotations and
we were trying to help and, uh,he was miserable.
And we were all miserable.
And once we decided to take, we,it opened up, we took him to
pillars.
He immediately, he relaxed andimmediately, um.
It made a huge difference, and Ican't say enough about the

(17:51):
people there either.
I, I didn't know that placeexisted.
I know about hospice care, but Ididn't know it was right by Hill
Marie High School.
Right.
You know, old kind of stompingground.
Yeah.
Right at the intersection ofNorth St.
Paul, Oakdale, Maplewood and St.
Paul.
I mean, literally like the, thefour corners.
Steve, was it the aesthetics ofthe place that just helped him
relax?
Was it the people, just theoverall vibe, like, um, can you.

(18:13):
Think about, I don't know whatit, we got him in a better
position, Steve, what was it?
2017.
Okay.
We got him in a, in a, in a commore comfortable bed.
Okay.
And it was a, it was a a, eventhough we had like a hospital
bed at home, it was a betteradjustable bed.
And we just, they got him, Idon't know what they got.
I don't know what they did tohim, but he was immediately
calmed.
It was breathing normal.
Mm.
And we were all there.

(18:34):
We could all be in the sameroom.
Sure.
Um, and the, it's the peoplethough, and the, but the
setting.
Is, it's like in this little elkhole.
It's not a hospital room, it'sjust a comfort hole.
It's like a, it's a, it's aneight bedroom home.
Yeah.
And it's in the woodsessentially.
Yeah.
Okay.
And they got this beautiful deckthat overlooks the, overlooks
this pond.
It's just sat in the woods therein some weird, crazy way, but

(18:56):
it's nestled in there reallynicely.
It's nestled.
Yes, nestled.
Well, that right there, itdescribes why it would probably
be more relaxing, just the wholenature aspect.
Yeah.
Uh, but it's the people thatmm-hmm.
I think honestly, that's whatmade the, made the big
difference.
Mm-hmm.
They were, they weren't, theywere the right tone of, um,
making you feel like they're,they, they know exactly what

(19:18):
phases.
Uh, your family members andthey, they know, they, they know
the death experience so well.
They know all the phases andthey are explaining all the
things that's going on andwhat's, right.
Now he's, you know, he's totallyaware.
He can hear you, you know, buthis, this is changing and it's
just slowing down.
And then the, the breathing.
Yeah.
All of it.
And that, uh, they're, they'reamazing.

(19:40):
And then they also, I just wannamention one, one thing I
remember there was a prayer thata guy came in, right, right
towards the end, we're all justin tears and.
It wasn't a, it wasn't atheologian priest talk.
It was a guy praying very deeplyand spiritually with us for my
dad and with my dad.
It was, it was so, uh,connecting to all of us.

(20:01):
And that's something I, Ididn't, you don't experience
that at a hospital.
Sure.
Um, and it was, it was, uh, itwas kind of what we all needed
and what it was very, um, movingmoment.
There's a, a quote that Ilearned from.
Hopefully I can say DennisPrager, he's who's by the way,
had a spinal cord injuryrecently and is laid up.

(20:22):
Yeah.
But he always would say thefamous are rarely significant
and the significant are rarelyfamous, and so, amen.
Yep.
That's we're, I think aboutthese hospice workers that
they're never gonna be famous.
They took this job because theylove.
Okay.
Communicating and helping.
Like I had sent to John in text.

(20:43):
I, I, I, I commented, that'swhere we sent my dad to pillars
and I said, people there, um,and people in this industry, I
think there's a calling thatthey're, they're coming for and
that they're, they're drawn to.
I want you to hear this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Beautiful.
Okay.
This was one of the nurses camein.
Can you hear this?
Well, it's coming through yourmicrophone.

(21:03):
Yep.
It's coming.
Okay.
Okay.
Tune up the guitar.
Is it a music therapist?
You a nurse.
Oh, alright.
This is for you Jeff.
A and I.
For it.
Never at all.

(21:26):
This is a nurse.
You such power in your smile.
Wow.
You know the song, I've neverheard it before.
Oh yeah, I have.
You've heard this when you.

(21:48):
You.
Hear, we shy, are smiling.
Oh my gosh.
My dad would've loved that.
Is this at Regions?

(22:08):
Where was this?
This was at Pillars.
Pillars.
Okay.
Beautiful.
Beautiful voice.
You gotta hear the end of this.
It's just you.
She's a good guitar player too.
Yeah.
And of course my dad is Irish,of course, half Irish and oh,

(22:45):
honest to God, not a dry eye.
It's incredible.
And the fact.
It's actually really good soundcoming through your mic like
that.
And this and the fact that my,well it's Bluetooth.
Oh, it's Bluetooth.
Did you hook it, it through?
Okay.
Um, the fact that my son had thewherewithal to tape that for us,
'cause I wasn't there when ithappened.

(23:06):
Oh man.
He sent that and my mom wasn'tthere.
Oh man.
And you know, the, the one ofthe themes of the, the funeral
and everything is, you know, hisIrish heritage and Yeah.
You know.
So, yeah, that was, that wasjust one of many examples of the
kind of extraordinary,thoughtful care that we received
while we were there.
Oh, that's great.

(23:27):
Um, there aren't many places inMinnesota that have hospice
homes like this.
And man, it makes you, it makesyou wonder.
Why, why aren't there more?
And part of it is, is becauseit's all private pay.
And I have just a really funnystory about the private pay
piece of this.
Yeah.
So we moved him in on Saturdaymorning at 10:00 AM and he says,

(23:52):
how much is this costing?
And I said, dad, your dad askedthis?
He did.
He asked me, and he knew thatthere was like a three day
minimum because my grandpa hadbeen there like 15 years or, or
10 years earlier.
And I said, I don't know, dad.
He's getting a notebook.
He's keeping track of all thethings.
It's like, you know, it's like600 bucks a night or something.
I said, it's like a really nicehotel and you're getting room
service.

(24:12):
We're getting room servicesongs, you know?
Right.
Yeah.
You're getting music.
Wow.
He said.
So it's Saturday, three dayminimum.
I'll be sure that I ch um, Icheck out by Tuesday morning.
Oh my God.
And he checked out by Tuesdaymorning.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, it was unbelievable howlike he was still talking there.
He was talking and just the,the, the, the palliative care

(24:36):
doctors at Regions Hospital saidthe minute he stops dialysis,
he's got seven to 10 days.
Wow.
They know that stuff.
And it was, it was.
Seven days from his lastdialysis.
So he was comfortable though,was he?
He was very, it sure seemed likeit.
Yeah, that's, I know he wascomfortable.
Comfortable.
Spiritually He was comfortableemotionally, you know, I mean,

(24:57):
he was sad to go'cause he, youknow, didn't wanna miss out on
stuff.
Oh, of course.
But he, you know, he, he was atpeace.
It sounds like he was a he andhe's a man of faith.
Yeah.
And I gotta tell you, uh.
Father, uh, WAPA from St.
Joe's, uh, in West St.
Paul, who used to be at St.
Jude's was an absolute blessing.

(25:18):
And then, uh, father Utech,father John Utech, uh, who's,
he's the associate pastor,, he'sthe student ministry guy at, at,
uh, hill Murray.
But he came and just, it gavehim such comfort.
Was there any, I know you're notbig into pets like I am, but was

(25:40):
there any dog therapy?
Oh, absolutely.
There were some dogs.
So my.
Uncle Harry brought his dog overand his dog, uh, was in heat for
the first time.
So the dog had a diaper on.
There's a detail.
Oh God, the dog had a diaper on.
Yeah.
And my son Ben, and at the sametime my, my nephew or my cousin

(26:02):
Nelson had a son.
That was there.
Who's, you know, one and a halfyears old, he was in a diaper.
And my dad, you know Yeah, he'sin the hospital.
Yep.
And my son, Ben says, well nowthere's three of us in a diaper.
And it did not land very wellwith some of the people in the
family.
But I said to Ben, I'm like,that was a pretty damn.
And my dad, my dad thought itwas very fun.

(26:23):
That's good.
That's all that matters.
All that matters.
That was pretty quick.
It was very quick.
And you know, he, Ben saidthings throughout this process
that were just like.
Uh, you know, he asked my dad ifhe had been visited by the ghost
of Christmas past yet, and it'slike Ben, but knowing my dad's
sense of humor, my dad got it.

(26:44):
It worked for him.
I mean, it worked for him.
Yeah.
Didn't work for everybody.
Yeah.
And I was actually warned, youknow, I'm doing the eulogy on
Thursday.
I was gonna ask and, and I waswarned, dial back.
The way you are.
Can I ask who warned you?
Everybody.
Mostly my mom and my sister.
Okay.
Family.
But my wife, you know, so I puttogether my.

(27:07):
Eulogy and I read it to them toget their approval.
And I mean, there's, I've got acouple of things in there that I
just had to say.
Absolutely.
If it's comes from the heart,you gotta say it.
Well, and I'll just, I'll giveyou the, uh, the, the, you know,
this is, these were a couple ofthe lines that, uh, well I was
gonna come on Thursday, so Idon't want you to, I don't want
you to, like, I hope that youcome spoiler alert, but go

(27:28):
ahead.
So I said, um, you know, Iacknowledge my brother-in-law
Chad, who has been just anabsolute godsend.
Yeah.
And I said, you know, Chad, youknow, was the brother I never
had in many respects, the son,my dad never had, you know, he
can fix stuff.
He's got a truck, you know, hedoes man things.

(27:48):
He's capable.
He's capable.
He's an outdoorsman and not anendorse man like you.
Yeah, he is not much of anoutdoorsman either, but anyway,
capable.
Then I talk about my wife and Isaid, you know, she takes on all
these technical projects thatnone of us want to take on, and
in many respects was also theson that my dad never had.
I like it.
I like it.
You know, and I mean, thosedon't, us too much are fine.

(28:10):
Those are fine.
Those are, could say thosethings.
Yeah.
But, um, yeah, it was just, I, Ialso gave the ugi for my dad.
Awesome.
My, our family kind of wrote it.
My sister, we kind of drafted akind of together in pieces and I
delivered it.
And, uh, um, my advice to youwould be to, um, because it can
be so emotional.
Oh, think of it, I know you gavea lot of presentations, but
think of it as, um, a gift toyour dad to deliver a great

(28:33):
presentation.
A great, you know, it's, it's abit of a performance because
otherwise if you sit and thinkabout all of it, you, it'll be
hard, really hard.
So you have to think of it as aperformance, lemme tell you.
Yeah.
So this past Saturday, um, pastSaturday, we had our gala, our
Minnesota Masonic Charitiesgala.
The gala was about the, we wereraising money that night for the

(28:55):
Masonic home because of this newproject that we wanna do, this
big project.
Yeah.
And Lauren, who's our chiefmarketing officer, told the
story of her mom who was inmemory care there for quite some
time, and just the care that thememory care folks had for her.
And she ended up passing away onChristmas morning, boy, uh, just
this past year.

(29:15):
And the staff there said, go bewith your son on Christmas
morning.
She's got a son, Jack, who'snine or 10 years old, and
they're like, we got this.
We will take care of your mom.
Your son needs you more thanyour mom does right now.
And it was just this beautifulstory.
So then I'm the one that givesthe closing remarks and I of
course need to acknowledge, youknow, the care that my dad

(29:37):
received.
Yeah.
It got the best of me.
Yep.
Yeah, and I mean, I'm usuallyyou pretty raw.
You're pretty raw.
I'm usually can, can manage myemotions, but you know, I had
to, it was hard.
A piece of advice I got from, Idon't know if you knew him, but
it was my brother's friend thatcoached me and.
Um, because I gave my brother'seulogy, but Kent Peterson, oh, I

(29:59):
was at your brother's funeraland Kent, uh, was the chaplain
at Tomahawk Scout reservation.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
But he, he helped me in a lot ofways, but one piece of advice
was try to gather letters fromdifferent walks of Chris's life,
and, and you'll get, you know,elements that you didn't even
know of.
So that was really nice.
But then he said, Jeff, ifyou're up there and you are
overcome from a motion, juststand.

(30:21):
Collect your thoughts, take somedeep breaths, people will
understand.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
And just a few deep breaths, youcan kind of pull it all back
together again.
And luckily I didn't have that,but I did write it all out and
just, oh, and I remember, sothis is, I knew Chris much more
than I knew Jeff.
Yeah.
And Chris was, I mean, Chris wasa golden boy.
Larger than life.

(30:41):
Yeah.
He was larger than life.
This just good looking,successful, gregarious.
He had it all.
He really did.
Yeah.
And uh, when I went to thefuneral, I sat behind the rookie
and I'm like, how does he knowthey're rookie.
I know.
You know, he was a guest on our,uh, yeah.
On our thing.
Anyway, um, yeah, I, uh, my dad,uh, while we were at Regions, he

(31:05):
started talking about, you know,what he wanted me to do really
with his eulogy.
Oh, cool.
And he's like, I don't want thisto be about me.
I want this to be about thepeople that cared for me.
Oh, wow.
And he's like, I want you toacknowledge.
So I, you know, I have these,I'm gonna acknowledge his
friends.
I'm gonna acknowledge his, his,uh, his siblings, his, uh, my

(31:27):
mom's siblings who wereabsolutely unbelievable through
this whole process.
Um.
And then, you know, talk aboutthe family and then, you know,
the priests, and I mean, it,it's, it'll be an unusual eulogy
'cause it's not gonna be toomuch about him any, he wouldn't
want it to be about him.
Huh.
He was truly, I mean, I, Itelling.

(31:47):
Well, given your storytellingabilities, I'm looking forward
to hearing about it.
Well, I'll probably be acomplete disaster.
Throw a little, I think to, tohelp yourself, maybe throw some
humor in there that you do verywell.
Oh, I, you know, it'll help kindof.
You know.
Yeah.
Pull you back too.
You know, I'm, it, it wouldn'tfeel right to, and, but my dad
not that's ever fitting, but itit, for you, it would fit, you

(32:08):
know?
I mean, you don't wanna laugh atchurch, you know, I'm not gonna
use any curse words or any ofthat stuff.
Well, and I listened to yourepisode, your Father's Day
episode, and I think you called,you may have said it earlier, a
400 watt light bulb and nothingworked below.
But then just, I got to hearsome of the stories about, uh,
and how he acknowledged you.
You guys were, you and KG wereasking him.

(32:28):
Uh, Steve about Yeah.
What was John like?
And then John didn't like that.
He is like, let's not make thisabout me.
Yeah.
He, he said grades, what is it?
Grades don't get degrees or,yeah.
He's like, why are you soworried about your grades?
Yeah.
Good god, everybody, the guythat graduates last in the class
gets the same degree as the guythat graduates first.
He goes, and then, and.
Story of your, I think you weregoing out west and you were

(32:51):
hanging out the window and just,it sounded like a really fun
family upbringing, so Yeah.
Oh, that's right.
We, we did the bare tooth pass.
Yes.
And I was a basket case and Ihaven't, you know, I'm so
grateful that we did thatepisode.
I haven't been able to listen toit yet.
It's awesome.
Um, but I also.
I had a feeling his days werenumbered, so every voicemail

(33:11):
that he left me, I saved thosevoicemails.
Oh good.
It's really smart and I just,you know, just to hear his
voice.
Yeah.
Well we're glad you're back,John.
I'm sorry.
Went through that.
I'm happy be back and I'm justso grateful to you guys.
I'm grateful to, you know, Iposted the obituary on Facebook
and My goodness, I saw it.
Yeah.
Just overwhelmed with thecomments.

(33:32):
You know, there's just notenough.
Uh, I haven't had thewherewithal to respond to every
one of those messages, but itreally is, we're surrounded by
just wonderful people.
Yep.
Um, and really what it, what ithas reminded me is for me, how
important being present at a, ata, at a visitation or at a

(33:54):
funeral is because I, I just,and, and, or commenting on a
Facebook post for, you know.
An obituary.
Mm-hmm.
It just, it means more than Iever imagined that it would.
Mm-hmm.
You know, hearing from friendsfrom high school and grade
school that I hardly ever talkedto and they, you know, put in
these nice comments about, youknow, I remember this about your

(34:16):
dad or that about your dad, and.
I remember that feeling too.
Like you, you have no idea whatthose little notes mean, but
they do mean a lot.
So if you are on the fence abouttaking the 30 seconds or a
minute to put that down, I thinkerror in the side of sharing
that because the person grievingwould love to hear that.
Spread it around.
Yeah.
Well, it's, I hope this was anuplifting episode and it was.

(34:39):
It was.
It's been an uplifting,bizarrely, uplifting experience
for me, so glad.
That's good to hear.
It's sad we haven't reallytalked, so I didn't really know
how you're doing.
I know that you guys have beendoing a lot and I didn't wanna
like be bugging you, but it's,it's been a lot.
It's been, you know, I mean,going through and doing the
picture boards, I mean, we'vehad so much fun with those and
just, yeah.
You know, laughing about how fatmy dad got and how skinny he got

(35:01):
and how, how much I look like mydad.
And it's like, oh my God, I seewhat the future looks like for
me.
Um, you look good.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
You look good.
I do remember I peaked into whenI was like 20.
It's been all downhill sincethen.
But anyways, thank you guys.
I appreciate uh, your support KGand, uh, Michael weren't able to

(35:21):
be with us today.
KG iss working.
Michael's a little under theweather.
Yeah.
But, uh, I'm happy that we areable to, to get this out and uh,
with that, off we go.