S7E30 What I Want My Grandchildren to Know with Scott Chesebro PART 1

There are some conversations we know we will remember for the rest of our lives. This is one of them.

My longtime friend Scott Chesebro and I share a history that stretches back decades - our education, our years in Chicago, our careers, our families, and our love for a city that has meant so much to both of us. But this conversation took place at a very different moment in Scott’s life.

Scott is now receiving hospice care at home, living with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive disease that has severely damaged his lungs. After being denied a lung transplant, Scott made the deeply personal decision to enter hospice. When I called him, the people helping with his cremation had just visited - and had suggested that he record something to be played at his memorial service. “Did that feel weird?” I asked.

What followed was anything but morbid. Scott was alert, thoughtful, philosophical - and remarkably open.

We talked about his journey from Bible School to the University of Michigan to Notre Dame, his career as a professor and four decades as director of the Chicago Center, his beloved wife Noreen, his children and grandchildren, and the city he has loved since 1966.

Most of all, we talked about life, death, memory, and what he hopes his grandchildren will know about their Grandpa Scott.

This is a conversation about dying—but even more, it is a conversation about living.

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