My father, Ronald D. Gramenz, died

This 1500 word post describes our experiences in the first days of February, 2019 around the death of my father.  Like all of us Dad was always doing the best he could.  I don’t know, but it seems like his behavioral range was a fair bit above average.  Every family thinks it’s special and I’m not going to be contrarian on that point; it goes without saying.  But saying it puts me in mind of the structure (psychological, spiritual, physical) of our unique family, the group sparked into being by Dad and Mom. I can tell as I write that these unique features of our family will be metamorphosing spectacularly as we now all move too fast toward our own exit.  Even the memories seem to be shifting.  I hope to be celebrating all these inevitable shifts and discoveries and insights as we survivors continue to be here together, doing the best we can. - 2/17/2019

Me and my sisters with dad: L to R Janine, Cindy, Linda

Dad died, on my birthday February 3.  He was 92, and would have had a birthday in April. A few months ago in November and December, I spent 22 days living with him in his small apartment in the memory care “lock-down” unit at his beloved senior living center, Lake Minnetonka Shores (LMS) in Spring Park, Minnesota. He had declined rapidly, was prone to falling, and we wanted to assess his needs.  Eventually on Dec. 7 we decided that it’s impossible to prevent falling, that we needed to live our lives, and we all returned home, realizing that he was in good hands at his residence and was going to get the care he needed and live the life he wanted. 

 Since my mom died in November of 2004, it’s been a constant in my life, wondering what’s going on with dad, always trying to fit in the visits to Minnesota (2 days?  4 days? ) and making those weekend phone calls. More recently, fears of getting “the call” prevailed.  In mid-January, the hospice nurse conveyed to us in no uncertain terms that we better get over there.  For the first 5 days in February, my wife Carol and sisters Cindy and Janine gathered to be with dad as his body stopped working.  Carol and I had a direct flight, and we had a few hours to wait until Cindy and Janine arrived at the airport.  We waited at the Surly brewing company in Minneapolis, had a beer, I guess steeling our nerves for what was to come but then again we tend to steel our nerves for life in general.   All four of us rode together in the rental car to dad’s place in Spring Park, just a half hour from the airport.  On arrival, dad was lying on his side, facing the window with the shades open.  I could not discern whether he recognized me, but at that point on the evening of Feb. 1, he was moving a bit, touching his face and eyes, and he seemed to be asking questions or commenting on something.  I couldn’t make out what.   We spoke with the staff, got him re-positioned, and made some calls.  My sister Linda’s daughter Sybil would drive the 2+ hours down from the Duluth area the next day, and she was deciding if she should bring her children (she made a good decision not to).   Linda would come as well, along with her husband Nick; they live just a half-hour away. Once we got those decisions made, a general plan materialized and we settled in for bedside vigil. Was he dying in a “comfortable” way?  His facial expressions became less and less variable, his jaw moved less and less (for the last 12 hours or so, not at all), and the “death rattle” eased after a secretion-reducing medication was added.  Was he in pain? Anxious? Afraid?  We didn’t know.  We had the Resident Assistants (RAs), especially John and Charles, helping us.  RA Sheila and the other staff who we met back in November or previously were there to visit with us and laugh and cry with us.  We tried to make out what was happening with him and work with the RA’s to give him extra Haldol and dilaudid as needed.  Unfortunately, every use of these drugs seemed to set in motion a cascade of requirements, monitoring, and documentation that seemed to take a half hour each time.  Being the weekend, the Hospice nurse on duty did not know dad, but she was just as good (Five Stars) as all the rest of the staff at Hospice and helped to adjust the routine medications Saturday morning, so that by Saturday afternoon, he was on an every 4 hour schedule and the extra doses with worried waiting ended. 

We settled into a pattern of taking turns sitting at the bedside.  We decided to sleep in the guest room located in the Court Apartment section of the campus, a 3 minute walk away.  Saturday was filled with visiting, and meeting with the hospice nurse.  We were happy that Linda, Nick, and Sybil were with us that afternoon. 

My sister Cindy had a dream that night in which our mom entered our Court apartment. Cindy’s feeling was simply, Mom has arrived.

The next day was Sunday Feb. 3, my birthday. I wore my New Orleans Saints T-shirt and we had the Super Bowl on in dad’s apartment.  It’s strange and pertinent comment on the importance of journaling that I cannot remember much else from that day.  Except the phone call from RA Doug at 11:50pm, after we had just gotten into bed: “come back”.  Dad had died not 20 minutes after we had spoken with Doug when he came on for his shift around 10 pm.  We spent our last moments with dad at the bedside, and called the funeral home.  His body would lie there until 10 the next morning, when a Procession of Honor took place.  His body was placed on a stretcher, and a caul draped over that.  The Memory Care staff gathered around, and they shared remembrances and farewells about dad.  Then we processed on to the main Town Center area where a larger group of residents gathered, including his special friend Lois.  More sharing, then his body was loaded into the hearse and to the funeral home. 

We launched phase two of this departure event.  Dealing with the stuff.  Dad had already downsized significantly, but still there were clothes, some food, gidgets and gadgets, and furniture.  Finding homes for the stuff was the agenda.  When dad first moved into LMS in the summer of 2006, he had used a storage facility just down the street, a stone’s throw from where my sister Linda used to live.  We ended up renting a 5X10 foot unit there, Metro Storage.  After a day of reviewing, tossing, or saving we four (Carol, Janine, Cindy, and myself) drove into Wayzata for dinner at a spot Carol and I liked to take him to on our visits over the years, The Muni.  Another Surly beverage consumed. We ate, we talked. Our voices rose and fell.  Dealing with it.

The snow had started to fall, and we had to pick up a rented van in a bit of a snowstorm. Backing the van up the sloping drive to the loading dock without slipping into the concrete sidewall was challenging.  Living in New Orleans is not a way to keep your wintertime driving skills sharp. Several trips from dad’s room using the flatbed hand hauler, and we were ready to load the van.  All pretty easy, except for the white desk, I think an acquisition by dad from another LMS resident some years ago.  Painted particle board, but it seemed to be made of solid white granite.  Upon arrival at Goodwill, we learned that contrary to what I had been told on the phone, they will “only accept furniture that can be moved by one person”…Really?  Only small chairs?  The guy relented and took most of what we had, except for the dresser with the white stain on the top (the first layer of paper from the hot pizza box we had placed on it 2 nights ago, after the “Super Bowl”).  And we had to keep the granite desk.  So we headed back out with our “ballast” onto the snow-covered roads for the 10 mile trip back to LMS.  We loaded the things we had set aside to save into the van and almost filled the storage unit. We locked it up using the same lock dad had used at Metro Storage when he moved into LMS, 12 years ago.  He had saved it with the gidgets and gadgets. 

There’s this bar a mile from dads at Hwy 19 and Shoreline, The Narrows Saloon.  It’s where a remarkable event occurred some years ago, when Pete, Nick and Rob (husbands of Cindy, Linda, and Carol, respectively), did some beer drinking and bro-ing there.  Remarkable in that these three are forever linked by family membership, yet have hung out together exactly one time. Turns out the food is good, service excellent, and it’s a joint that we will have to visit again for some sort of reunion.  Maybe to celebrate the distribution of the contents of the 10X5, when we’ll raise a Surly or two.  Maybe another winter gathering on what I am calling Transition Day, Feb. 3.  Although I think bike riding season would be better.  I have a bike in Minnesota that I keep there to use during visits.  Dad and I bought it at a used bike shop in Dinkytown near the University of Minnesota in the summer of 2010. Having no place in his apartment for it, I stored in the front of his parking space in the garage.  When he gave up driving, he arranged for it to be hung on the wall above another resident friend’s car and he repurposed a cloth storage bag to protect my helmet from garage dust. A dad supporting his son. 

Thanks, Dad.

Ronald D. Gramenz 4-19-1926 to 2-3-2019