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.

Transcript

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Jerry, good manners are the glue of society. Welcome back to the Kindness Chronicles, where once again, we hope to inject the world with a dose of the Minnesota. That it desperately needs. It has been some time since we've, put one of these, uh, yeah, the microphones are dusty. One of these, shows together. Let me explain what's been going on. I think some of you, uh, some of the listeners are aware, but, several weeks ago my dad took a spill and I mentioned that, I think I mentioned that on our podcast. Yeah, you did a couple of weeks ago. You, anyway, he, uh, broke his neck, ended up, essentially being paralyzed from the neck down. Was taken to Regions Hospital, spent, about 16, 17 days at Regions Hospital. Decided to go home, uh, to do home hospice care. We did home hospice for about four or five days, and, his medical needs were just too much for us to handle. Yeah, so we brought him to a place called Pillars, which is a 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 just last Tuesday, I would like today's show just to be about the experience that I had. Yeah. And I, I don't wanna make this just about me, but, uh, it was really a strangely fulfilling experience. Hmm. Something I never expected.. Really just a, a genuine privilege to be able to care for my dad. Yeah. Uh, after, you know, he spent 80 years caring for us. Yep. But, the kindness that my entire family experienced really cannot be overstated. It was absolutely shockingly amazing from the folks at Regions Hospital. I'll get more into the details of that. But, thank you for, uh, for your patience. Those of you listeners who, uh, have been wondering, when are they gonna post an, they're clamoring, the kids are clamming for another podcast. I love fact that somebody's actually 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? 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, it was a, it nothing, nothing even close to what you just went through, John. Yeah. But it was a very intense, stressful, probably the most stressful things. Stressful things, me and my wife and kids have ever gone through my two kids. Just the moving process, just the moving, moving out, all of it. It was really stressful, but we made it and we, we absolutely loved the place. How long were you in the house that you were in before? Uh, nine years. Okay. 10. 10 years and, uh, 11 years to the house before that. So I've been in Cottage Grove for 21 years. So you've accumulated a lot of stuff that you Yeah. When you, you get a bigger house, you just fill it with more stuff. Yes. So now we've got a little smaller house. It's actually not smaller, but it's, it's set up differently. And, uh, storage. It's an older house, so storage-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't it? It is, it is. I really, I love it. I'm very excited. But, um, I walk to and from work now. What? Wow. Nine minutes to walk home from work. Oh my. It's, it's fascinating. Yeah. You become like a one with the earth, like healthy guy. I, I thought you had to drive places and take customers out or something. Well, I have to go, when I go to work, I ride with, if I'm going to a project, I ride with people on 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 then sometimes, uh, I'm just on the phone, but we have to do projects and I have to go out and I'm on the roof putting stuff together, but I am so close to work and so, so happy and. We've got finally gathered everything back to our house and we are just still sorting through. But it's And you sold the other house? Oh yeah, we sold the house in June. Okay. Yeah. So you're not sitting on two mortgage payments? No, that's always, uh, no, that's always a little stressful. It's great. So I've been through some intense stuff, but nothing compares to losing your dad. Yeah. And I'm sorry, John. Thank you. Thank you. It, it's been a very odd experience. Yeah. Uh, the, the first time I really felt it was after the gophers came back to, uh, to win their game on Saturday. You know, I usually, I would call my dad and he'd have some sarcastic comment about PJ Fleck or something like that, so I will always miss that. But. Let me just start with, the experience that we had at Regions Hospital. So, as I said, dad fell, broke his neck, the White Bear Lake Fire Department showed up and they said, where do you want to take him? And I said, I don't know. We usually go to St. John's. And they looked at me and they like. We gotta take him to to regions.'cause it's a level one trauma center. Yes. This, this seems like a spinal cord injury.'cause he couldn't feel anything. Oh, God Couldn't feel anything from his neck down. Oh, frightening. So started with those guys. Those, uh, the paramedics were absolutely amazing. The care that they showed him, you know, they, they were concerned about his neck, doing more damage. So it secure him very, very well. Right. They had to secure him and. I took him down to, uh, to regions. How did they calm him? Like that's a stressful situation. I'm curious throughout these stages as you tell your story, how the words people used and how they defused the situation. Just you, you know, I, my, my dad still as much like freaked out as he was, he still what I saw outta my dad that was more. Meaningful to me than anything was just the gratitude that he showed to every single person that cared for him. Wow. Like he was so grateful for the care that these guys were providing him. And he must have said it, you know, six to eight times, really. And that, but he also still had a sense of humor. So we're going over, you know, we're on County Road E, and clearly the county hasn't taken care of that road. Oh. And we're hitting all these bumps. And my dad says something like. How many railroad tracks are you people gonna find? You know, here he is in, in, you know, having no feeling and terrible pain in his neck and in his shoulders. Hopefully he's in shock and it was protecting him a little bit. Who knows? Yeah. Just how grateful he was on the way down there. So then we get to the emergency room and immediately there was like 15 people in the room caring for him. You know, so I kind of popped out of their head, called my mom and said, Hey, because I happened to be with them when he fell. Oh. Oh, really? Yeah. So here's, here's the guilt that I've been dealing with. Oh boy. Here we go. I was on a work call and my job was to make sure that if he needed anything, he got it. Well, he got up with his walker to go into the bathroom. The walker goes into the bathroom. I'm in the other room on a phone call from work. It goes into the bathroom. The, uh, the wheels slip on the, oh, no. Oh no. And he falls back and go backwards. 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't worry about that. That's another thing that I've learned. I used Jesus and God way too much in my talk. Really? You kind of discovered that when we met with, oh, I got discovered it because when we were meeting with the, uh, deacon Frank at St. Uh St. Jude's, my wife said, do you know how often you say Jesus? And God and Frank never said anything. You know, Frank, Frank, the Tank, absolutely love Frank. He's a great guy. Tank. He's friends with Nick Frank. He is friends with Nick and he's also the, uh, the brother-in-law, one of my favorite 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 are colliding. 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 floor at, uh, Regents Hospital, which is the 11th floor. And just those people are angels. Yeah, absolute angels. And like one of the head trauma nurses pokes her head in and she looks in at us and it was my sister's best friend from eighth grade, Dina. And I'm like, Dina, what the hell are you doing here? And she's like a big shot nurse down there. So she kept coming up and making sure that we were cared for. Oh boy. But Nurse Nick. Nurse Mike, my dad referred to him as Magic Mike, not knowing what that actually meant. And both Nick and Mike are these really handsome nurses. Yeah. And you know, my wife and I are like, it's almost like Chicago met around here. Like it's everybody that works here that attractive. I mean, it's just nuts. Turns out magic Mike. Right outta high school was a runway model in Paris and Milan. What? Yes. Oh, funny. Yes. And you know, uh, some of the best nurses come from modeling some I I apparently. Um, and the reason he got outta modeling is a story that, uh, we'll save for another day, but it's pretty crazy. Um, so regions, the people at Regions, regions at the people at regions were incredible. And the palliative care docs, these trauma docs that, you know, kind of talked us through all this and the. Spiritual advisors that they had and the social workers. I cannot say enough about the kindness and just the compassion that those people showed, if you're a person that's got some money and you want to throw it at Regions Hospital, I would suggest that you do that because man, they put it to good use. Yeah. It's, it's a great place. We had both our kids there and, uh, and speaking of palliative care, that's just something I learned about and it's a whole different oh boy angle and it's, it's almost like. Uh, relieving to know that there's a whole focus. I didn't really understand any of that, but when my dad was dying, it was the same thing. It was like they are now focused on, they're not trying to make him better. They're trying to make him comfortable. Comfortable. Yep. That's a whole different Absolutely. Area of medicine that I didn't understand. It was super, and it's super important. It's, and it's not just physically comfortable, it's also emotionally comfortable. Absolutely. And spiritually comfortable. And they did an amazing job with that. I mean, they checked all those boxes. One of the things that we talked about in our prep session before this was, you know, as a, as a human being, we spend a lot of time preparing for the birth of a child. Yeah. Preparing for the school district, the house that you're gonna buy, the college that your kids are gonna go to, the job that you're gonna have hours of thinking about it and talking about it. I just dunno how much time people think about. This part of the journey? Yeah. For your parents or yourself? For your parents, or for yourself. Yeah. I mean, my, nobody wants to I, that's right. We wanna just keep it all going and make everything happy. And all I can say is thank God that there are people out there that are prepared to help us through that journey. Especially the people at Pillars without question. Yeah. And we're gonna get to pillars in a second. Yeah. But the other thing that was brought to my attention that I could not have been. More proud of is every time my mother mentioned that we were, we were originally thinking about bringing my dad back to the Masonic home because he had such a great experience and to a person, social workers, nurses, doctors, many of them would say, well, how are you even aware of the Masonic home? And my mom would say, and it was always very funny, she goes, well, I know somebody that works there. Wow. Oh, who works there? Well, my son works there. What do you do? Well, I have a really nice office there. That's kind of what I would say. But the, so they were, they were saying good things about it. Every single one of them. And knowing you were, every single 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, and it's all been hearsay, what wonderful care that we have. I was a beneficiary. My family was a beneficiary at the 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't think that, I think that that's just standard operating procedure. Yeah, I'm sure The physical therapist that we had that came up said, oh, my best friend and I did our internship there. She got a job there and I didn't get one. And I'm still upset because she absolutely loves it. She's been there for 14 years. Oh boy. And. I'm like, you know, we're probably always hiring. I don't know, but I, that's what I hear. But just, I was so just overwhelmed with pride for the place that I happened to, to work. Fantastic work. So that was very cool. It's gotta feel good. We, uh, brought dad home and tried 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 all of his needs. Yeah. Not just the feeding, but the wound care and the changing of the pads. Yes. All this stuff and every time we moved him, it was excruciating pain. And it took like three or four people to, to, to do this. Was it just family doing that part? It took family and some friends. Okay. No family and some friends. So they didn't provide a, a staff person? No. We had a hospice nurse that came out twice in those two days and they were wonderful. 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, you know, he had that. Paper, skin, you know, that, uh, cray paper skin. Yeah. Really thin, you know, take care of your skin people.'cause good old God. Take care of your skin. Take care of your feet. Get out and move around. Yeah. You know, I don't think my dad was ever a guy that, you know. Officially went out and exercised. My dad wasn't either, you know, he, he worked, but he, you know, he worked at a DA on a desk and you know, his exercise was getting back and forth from the refrigerator. You know, I mean, the greatest invention was the remote control for my dad'cause he was a pro at working the remote control. But. You know, it really did, it really kind of opened my eyes to, you know, care. So I, I have a question about when 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 would spend every night in his 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 wife and my. Children and my nephews all sort of wrote, and my brother-in-law, Chad, who was an absolute angel, we would, we would have a team of four people there every night. Yeah. Yeah. We rotated too like that. That's the way you gotta do it. And, and it was hard. It's overwhelming because, you know, you, you sleep with one eye open every time you hear a noise. Yep. Yes, you're listening to it and responding to it well, and your mind is probably just projecting what's about to come and, oh God. Yeah. What's, what's the next step and do I need to be ready for Right. Praying and praying over them, or what's gonna happen next, right. Yeah. So after about four days of that, um, my mom had a friend who had been cared for at Pillars. So she made the phone call and said, 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 we got a call that said we got an opening, and if you're, if you want the room, you can have it. So it was a Saturday morning and,, we had, a guy who does transport for a company that doesn't do transportation on the weekend. Uh, came and picked him up. Mm. Um, you know, we paid him and my dad being the guy that he is, he's, you know, he kind of whispers 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 a hundred dollars on him. Oh. I still got a Venmo on that. Trained him. Trained him well, no, but the fact that your dad is aware of it and watching for that kind of stuff, he, that's the guy that he was, he was so grateful and this guy that drove us from his house to pillars. Could not have been a more just lovely human being. Just, just that guy helped get him outta the house. Did it? Yep. Yep. So he, he came with a stretcher. Okay. And we moved him onto the stretcher and, and into this van that's built for a stretcher and for transport. Yeah. Allegiance Transport was the name of the company. Not to put you on the spot, but give me an example of when you say he couldn't be more wonderful. What, what, do you remember any experiences from what he did? Absolutely. I mean, he, he, you know, just talked about, uh. You know, how long that he had been doing this and um, you know how he absolutely loves the work. He was a businessman for many years and just wasn't fulfilled by it. And, you know, it was so just engaging you in conversation, engaging my dad, you know? Yeah. You know, God, I'm sorry we missed that. Uh, that we hit that bump and Oh, you know, just so great. Just so great. Yeah. And you know, the fact that he worked on the weekend and this place does not do weekend transports. And he said, sure, I'll, you know, I'll come in and work and Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. You know, I'm sure he got paid right, but just went the extra mile and did something extra mile. I mean, it was just the, the people that are in that line of work are just angels. Mm-hmm. So then we end up at pillars. And you had a pillars experience with your dad. Yeah. Why don't you tell us about your experience 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 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 and immediately, um. It made a huge difference, and I can't say enough about the people there either. I, I didn't know that place existed. I know about hospice care, but I didn't know it was right by Hill Marie High School. Right. You know, old kind of stomping ground. Yeah. Right at the intersection of North St. Paul, Oakdale, Maplewood and St. Paul. I mean, literally like the, the four corners. Steve, was it the aesthetics of the place that just helped him relax? Was it the people, just the overall vibe, like, um, can you. Think about, I don't know what it, we got him in a better position, Steve, what was it? 2017. Okay. We got him in a, in a, in a com more comfortable bed. Okay. And it was a, it was a a, even though we had like a hospital bed at home, it was a better adjustable bed. And we just, they got him, I don't know what they got. I don't know what they did to him, but he was immediately calmed. It was breathing normal. Mm. And we were all there. We could all be in the same room. Sure. Um, and the, it's the people though, and the, but the setting. Is, it's like in this little elk hole. It's not a hospital room, it's just a comfort hole. It's like a, it's a, it's an eight bedroom home. Yeah. And it's in the woods essentially. Yeah. Okay. And they got this beautiful deck that overlooks the, overlooks this pond. It's just sat in the woods there in some weird, crazy way, but it's nestled in there really nicely. It's nestled. Yes, nestled. Well, that right there, it describes why it would probably be more relaxing, just the whole nature aspect. Yeah. Uh, but it's the people that mm-hmm. I think honestly, that's what made the, made the big difference. Mm-hmm. They were, they weren't, they were the right tone of, um, making you feel like they're, they, they know exactly what phases. Uh, your family members and they, they know, they, they know the death experience so well. They know all the phases and they are explaining all the things that's going on and what's, right. Now he's, you know, he's totally aware. He can hear you, you know, but his, this is changing and it's just slowing down. And then the, the breathing. Yeah. All of it. And that, uh, they're, they're amazing. And then they also, I just wanna mention one, one thing I remember there was a prayer that a guy came in, right, right towards the end, we're all just in tears and. It wasn't a, it wasn't a theologian priest talk. It was a guy praying very deeply and spiritually with us for my dad and with my dad. It was, it was so, uh, connecting to all of us. And that's something I, I didn't, you don't experience that at a hospital. Sure. Um, and it was, it was, uh, it was kind of what we all needed and what it was very, um, moving moment. There's a, a quote that I learned from. Hopefully I can say Dennis Prager, he's who's by the way, had a spinal cord injury recently and is laid up. Yeah. But he always would say the famous are rarely significant and the significant are rarely famous, and so, amen. Yep. That's we're, I think about these hospice workers that they're never gonna be famous. They took this job because they love. Okay. Communicating and helping. Like I had sent to John in text. I, I, I, I commented, that's where we sent my dad to pillars and I said, people there, um, and people in this industry, I think there's a calling that they'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 came in. Can you hear this? Well, it's coming through your microphone. 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. This is a nurse. You such power in your smile. Wow. You know the song, I've never heard it before. Oh yeah, I have. You've heard this when you. You. Hear, we shy, are smiling. Oh my gosh. My dad would've loved that. Is this at Regions? 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, honest to God, not a dry eye. It's incredible. And the fact. It's actually really good sound coming 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 the wherewithal to tape that for us,'cause I wasn't there when it happened. Oh man. He sent that and my mom wasn't there. Oh man. And you know, the, the one of the themes of the, the funeral and everything is, you know, his Irish heritage and Yeah. You know. So, yeah, that was, that was just one of many examples of the kind of extraordinary, thoughtful care that we received while we were there. Oh, that's great. Um, there aren't many places in Minnesota that have hospice homes like this. And man, it makes you, it makes you wonder. Why, why aren't there more? And part of it is, is because it's all private pay. And I have just a really funny story about the private pay piece of this. Yeah. So we moved him in on Saturday morning at 10:00 AM and he says, how much is this costing? And I said, dad, your dad asked this? He did. He asked me, and he knew that there was like a three day minimum because my grandpa had been 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 the things. It's like, you know, it's like 600 bucks a night or something. I said, it's like a really nice hotel and you're getting room service. We're getting room service songs, you know? Right. Yeah. You're getting music. Wow. He said. So it's Saturday, three day minimum. I'll be sure that I ch um, I check out by Tuesday morning. Oh my God. And he checked out by Tuesday morning. Mm-hmm. I mean, it was unbelievable how like he was still talking there. He was talking and just the, the, the, the palliative care doctors at Regions Hospital said the 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 last dialysis. So he was comfortable though, was he? He was very, it sure seemed like it. Yeah, that's, I know he was comfortable. Comfortable. Spiritually He was comfortable emotionally, you know, I mean, he was sad to go'cause he, you know, didn't wanna miss out on stuff. Oh, of course. But he, you know, he, he was at peace. It sounds like he was a he and he'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. And then, uh, father Utech, father John Utech, uh, who's, he's the associate pastor,, he's the student ministry guy at, at, uh, hill Murray. But he came and just, it gave him such comfort. Was there any, I know you're not big into pets like I am, but was there any dog therapy? Oh, absolutely. There were some dogs. So my. Uncle Harry brought his dog over and 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 same time my, my nephew or my cousin Nelson had a son. That was there. Who's, you know, one and a half years old, he was in a diaper. And my dad, you know Yeah, he's in the hospital. Yep. And my son, Ben says, well now there's three of us in a diaper. And it did not land very well with 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 it was very fun. That's good. That's all that matters. All that matters. That was pretty quick. It was very quick. And you know, he, Ben said things throughout this process that were just like. Uh, you know, he asked my dad if he had been visited by the ghost of Christmas past yet, and it's like Ben, but knowing my dad's sense of humor, my dad got it. It worked for him. I mean, it worked for him. Yeah. Didn't work for everybody. Yeah. And I was actually warned, you know, I'm doing the eulogy on Thursday. I was gonna ask and, and I was warned, 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 put together my. Eulogy and I read it to them to get their approval. And I mean, there's, I've got a couple 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 give you the, uh, the, the, you know, this is, these were a couple of the lines that, uh, well I was gonna come on Thursday, so I don't want you to, I don't want you to, like, I hope that you come spoiler alert, but go ahead. So I said, um, you know, I acknowledge my brother-in-law Chad, who has been just an absolute godsend. Yeah. And I said, you know, Chad, you know, 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, he does man things. He's capable. He's capable. He's an outdoorsman and not an endorse man like you. Yeah, he is not much of an outdoorsman either, but anyway, capable. Then I talk about my wife and I said, you know, she takes on all these technical projects that none of us want to take on, and in many respects was also the son that my dad never had. I like it. I like it. You know, and I mean, those don't, us too much are fine. Those are fine. Those are, could say those things. Yeah. But, um, yeah, it was just, I, I also gave the ugi for my dad. Awesome. My, our family kind of wrote it. My sister, we kind of drafted a kind of together in pieces and I delivered it. And, uh, um, my advice to you would be to, um, because it can be so emotional. Oh, think of it, I know you gave a lot of presentations, but think of it as, um, a gift to your dad to deliver a great presentation. A great, you know, it's, it's a bit of a performance because otherwise if you sit and think about all of it, you, it'll be hard, really hard. So you have to think of it as a performance, lemme tell you. Yeah. So this past Saturday, um, past Saturday, we had our gala, our Minnesota Masonic Charities gala. The gala was about the, we were raising money that night for the Masonic home because of this new project that we wanna do, this big project. Yeah. And Lauren, who's our chief marketing officer, told the story of her mom who was in memory care there for quite some time, and just the care that the memory care folks had for her. And she ended up passing away on Christmas morning, boy, uh, just this past year. And the staff there said, go be with your son on Christmas morning. She's got a son, Jack, who's nine or 10 years old, and they're like, we got this. We will take care of your mom. Your son needs you more than your mom does right now. And it was just this beautiful story. So then I'm the one that gives the closing remarks and I of course need to acknowledge, you know, the care that my dad received. Yeah. It got the best of me. Yep. Yeah, and I mean, I'm usually you pretty raw. You're pretty raw. I'm usually can, can manage my emotions, but you know, I had to, it was hard. A piece of advice I got from, I don't know if you knew him, but it was my brother's friend that coached me and. Um, because I gave my brother's eulogy, but Kent Peterson, oh, I was at your brother's funeral and Kent, uh, was the chaplain at Tomahawk Scout reservation. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But he, he helped me in a lot of ways, but one piece of advice was try to gather letters from different 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, if you're up there and you are overcome from a motion, just stand. Collect your thoughts, take some deep breaths, people will understand. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And just a few deep breaths, you can 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, so this is, I knew Chris much more than I knew Jeff. Yeah. And Chris was, I mean, Chris was a golden boy. Larger than life. 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 the funeral, I sat behind the rookie and I'm like, how does he know they'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 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 this to be about me. I want this to be about the people that cared for me. Oh, wow. And he's like, I want you to acknowledge. 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 mom's siblings who were absolutely unbelievable through this whole process. Um. And then, you know, talk about the 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 too much about him any, he wouldn't want it to be about him. Huh. He was truly, I mean, I, I telling. Well, given your storytelling abilities, I'm looking forward to hearing about it. Well, I'll probably be a complete disaster. Throw a little, I think to, to help yourself, maybe throw some humor in there that you do very well. Oh, I, you know, it'll help kind of. You know. Yeah. Pull you back too. You know, I'm, it, it wouldn't feel right to, and, but my dad not that's ever fitting, but it it, for you, it would fit, you know? I mean, you don't wanna laugh at church, you know, I'm not gonna use any curse words or any of that stuff. Well, and I listened to your episode, your Father's Day episode, and I think you called, you may have said it earlier, a 400 watt light bulb and nothing worked below. But then just, I got to hear some of the stories about, uh, and how he acknowledged you. You guys were, you and KG were asking him. Uh, Steve about Yeah. What was John like? And then John didn't like that. He is like, let's not make this about me. Yeah. He, he said grades, what is it? Grades don't get degrees or, yeah. He's like, why are you so worried about your grades? Yeah. Good god, everybody, the guy that graduates last in the class gets the same degree as the guy that graduates first. He goes, and then, and. Story of your, I think you were going out west and you were 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 I haven't, you know, I'm so grateful that we did that episode. I haven't been able to listen to it yet. It's awesome. Um, but I also. I had a feeling his days were numbered, so every voicemail that he left me, I saved those voicemails. 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 just so grateful to you guys. I'm grateful to, you know, I posted the obituary on Facebook and My goodness, I saw it. Yeah. Just overwhelmed with the comments. You know, there's just not enough. Uh, I haven't had the wherewithal to respond to every one of those messages, but it really is, we're surrounded by just wonderful people. Yep. Um, and really what it, what it has reminded me is for me, how important being present at a, at a, at a visitation or at a 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 I ever imagined that it would. Mm-hmm. You know, hearing from friends from high school and grade school that I hardly ever talked to and they, you know, put in these nice comments about, you know, I remember this about your dad or that about your dad, and. I remember that feeling too. Like you, you have no idea what those little notes mean, but they do mean a lot. So if you are on the fence about taking the 30 seconds or a minute to put that down, I think error in the side of sharing that because the person grieving would love to hear that. Spread it around. Yeah. Well, it's, I hope this was an uplifting episode and it was. 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 really talked, so I didn't really know how you're doing. I know that you guys have been doing 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've had so much fun with those and just, yeah. You know, laughing about how fat my dad got and how skinny he got and how, how much I look like my dad. And it's like, oh my God, I see what the future looks like for me. Um, you look good. Oh yeah. Yeah. You look good. I do remember I peaked into when I was like 20. It's been all downhill since then. But anyways, thank you guys. I appreciate uh, your support KG and, uh, Michael weren't able to be with us today. KG iss working. Michael's a little under the weather. Yeah. But, uh, I'm happy that we are able to, to get this out and uh, with that, off we go.