I visited Minneapolis to bury my grandma, who died of covid at the age of 100. I checked out familiar spots in this native home of mine and connected with friends and family.

Burying Grandma

Cordelia was the only grandparent I really knew. She died of covid, with only a nursing assistant there due to virus restrictions. We were able to say goodbye over video the night before. It saddened me to think that her final decades were a bit lonely. And then to die without family, which she treasured, is sadder still.

She was born when the 1918 flu was circulating and she was there to witness the huge events of the 20th century. She hated losing her short-term memory as she aged, but loved visits with family and flipping through endless photo books with mementos of raising three children and of traveling the US and Norway.

At the ceremony we remembered her for her deep gratitude for those around her, her love of family, and her pride in her Norwegian immigrant culture. I spoke at the funeral despite being nervous. Without being too morbid, I saw it as practice for my mom’s death, which is not far off in terms of years, and for my dad’s death, which is more distant but also an inevitability.

Despite having weeks to prepare, I wrote up my comments the morning of the ceremony, consistent with my pattern of self-sabotage. But I did OK.

We buried Cordelia in a rural cemetery next to her husband Elmo who died 33 years ago. Many members of my distant Norwegian family are buried there and in small cemeteries in Minnesota and South Dakota.

That generation is dying away. I know so little about who they are. I know so little about their links to me, how they contributed to who I, my parents and my siblings are. I feel a sense of wonder about the people and locales where my ancestors derived their births. But the connection is tenuous. The connection is in continual tension with the desire for self-determination, for a clean slate and the desire for a future of my own choosing. I value both. And even living your life in the service of values involves deliberate and unconscious tradeoffs.

Rain and a violent storm moved over the area as we drove there and back. The rain let up briefly. It gave the mourners a comfortable window to listen to my dad read from Psalms. We then placed Cordelia’s urn on the tombstone next to the grave of her husband, my grandpa. People tell me I would have loved to know him growing up.

Visiting a mother with dementia

Early in the pandemic my mom finally entered a care home where they can handle her advanced Alzheimer’s disease.

I somewhat dreaded seeing this home. I feared a bleak, understaffed warehouse for the dying. But it was much better than I expected. My mom has daily stimulation and assiduous care. My dad visits every day to feed her lunch and take her for a stroll around the pond.

Although this brain disease is stripping away much of her existence psychologically, it has not destroyed the continuity of her personhood. She still delights (mostly nonverbally) in the things she always loved, such as flowers, gardens, children, and family. She will not have the long old age that my grandma (mostly) enjoyed, but she will have a doting husband up until the end.

This stage of the disease is less distressing to the victim but more so to the people who love and care for her. Early on she had a mind aware of its own deterioration and this was painful and depressing to her. Now, the progression of the illness is more the affair of those around her than her own and this is painful and depressing to them.

Meeting my nephew

He is a little mid-pandemic success. I never heard him scream or cry. I am surprised and curious when I see people having kids in 2021.

I’ll try to be a good uncle from several states away. Funny, even an angelic toddler like this only reinforces my determination never to procreate. I can’t think of a single thing that would change my mind.

In his early months he’s a mirror of the ancient faith and hope for the future that my grandma’s grandparents had when they left Norway for the plains of the midwest.

Connecting with friends

I saw several cherished friends I had not connected with since March 2020, just as we were learning how bad the virus would be. When I visit next, some will be getting married. Others have fast-growing children. They have changed in ways that are fascinating, especially so for the ones I’ve known since elementary school and high school. I relish being welcomed back as a friend, talking of shared memories and making new ones.

Walking the chain of lakes

I walked Lake Harriet, Bde Mkaska, and Nokomis. These lakes are absolute gems. The parks and trails of Minneapolis are part of a well-connected system that residents ought to treasure.

In Portland, the parks and trails are disjointed and they often dump you onto dangerous roads. Many Portland parks and trails are situated under polluted freeways and overpasses. My favorite trail in Portland is in fact a Superfund site. It’s a large former industrial tract in a state of benign neglect where nature has thrived.

Another trail is a polluted slough where river otters and egrets manage to survive next to a filthy asphalt plant. Yet another trail (the East Bank Esplanade) is a Boring Dystopia kind of place: a paved trail in the polluted shadow of Interstate 5. It’s a colossal failure of urban planning, where prime downtown waterfront was turned into a car sewer.

My dad and I walked many miles around these Minneapolis lakes and in the neighborhood thanks to his two new knees. I talked and walked with him more than I have in many years.

Again morbidly but with significance, I reminded myself of the "tail end" perspective: all the time I spend with my dad is probably the last 1% of the time I’ll ever be with him. With that in mind, I stayed totally present for every meal and walk and talk. I listened more than I spoke. I tried to learn from him and look at him with new eyes rather than just view him as the Dad I’ve always known. I noticed that he follows the pattern of the older person in reminiscing about memories from the past. And sometimes even asking, indirectly, whether he made the right choices in certain aspects of parenting.

A brief covid lull

I visited during a time of declining cases and deaths. There was a feeling of optimism, hope and normalcy. This turned out to be brief. Even as we sat unmasked in large groups in restaurants and cafes, the silent sub-plague of the Delta variant ate through the population. Once the reality of Delta became clear later in the summer, many restrictions were reimposed. Looking back, I feel alarmed at the way I loosened my own precautions during that summer of tentative hope.

George Floyd Square and liberals’ words not matching their actions

The murals, flowers and memorials moved me. Some were gravestones marking the black people killed by police in the months since Floyd was killed.

My family and I watched attentively as the officer who killed him was sentenced. The term was appropriate. I appreciate protesting against violence. I noted however that in the week before I visited, three children were shot in the head in poorer North Minneapolis. One of them died. No white liberals stormed the streets there to confront gang members, shout at them and shame them. The image is laughable because they’d just get hurt or laughed at. No one was in the streets demanding action over these dead children.

I recalled my white former manager, who called herself “antifa all the way,” and said that screaming at cops during Portland’s protests helped to relieve workplace stress. She is not involved in Black economic empowerment, in teaching or connecting people of different backgrounds. But when it’s time to shout empty slogans, she is the loudest and most in your face.

I recalled a family member who was quick to denounce racism on Facebook… and happy to buy a house in a black and hispanic neighborhood with her white wife and cat and dog. Their dog can now shit among those gravestone memorials. The black lives matter signs can now replace the black people in this neighborhood where they are getting priced out.

As my sister and I looked at a mural a woman approached us and asked for money for a bullshit George Floyd-related cause. She made no effort to attempt to conceal that it was a scam. We gave her cash just for the feeling of contributing to something and walked home.

The one Trump supporter in my family

The only non liberal I know of in my family approached me at the funeral and asked if Portland was really the lawless cartoon-like wasteland that Fox News depicted.

This person’s two sisters died of covid. He was hospitalized with it and then had a long recovery where he was completely dependent on caregivers. He was totally helpless and dependent on the care of a team of nurses and doctors. Yet he still will not get vaccinated due to Fox News indoctrination.

He lived with the now-dead sister for decades and never married. My dad called that part of the family “enmeshed” psychologically. Now that the sister is dead, he has to learn to do his own laundry. He lives in a barren agricultural speck of Minnesota and only leaves to preach to dwindling elderly congregations in other small towns.

So, this is my primary first hand impression of trumpists: misinformed, pathetic, small-minded, and very, very old.

My rats died in the second Portland heat wave of the summer

Salt and Pepper had a good life. But they were a bit older and frailer and sometime on the afternoon of the hottest day, they died.

The 116 F heat tripped a wall heater unit. The heater unit blasted hot air for hours, buckling the linoleum floors, leaving surfaces hot to the touch, and killing the rats. My roommate was checking on them daily and feeding and playing with them. I don’t think they suffered because rodents quickly decompensate. But I miss them and I wish I had done something more to prevent it.

Pepper was affectionate and calm. Her sister Salt was more active and quicker to investigate and snatch food. They both drank beer and wine with gusto. They even sipped at bourbon, making hilarious grabs at it despite the strong vapors. Both of them eagerly explored when I took them to the park or to my deck. During quiet times they napped peacefully in my shirt while I sipped coffee and read my book.

Meditating on the Minnehaha Creek

I had time to sit next to the Minnehaha Creek and on the chain of lakes to sit and meditate. I observed my mind ruminating over life’s basic questions of why.

Why did my grandma live to 100 while my mom developed advanced dementia before she even turned 70? Why did my uncle die in his 50s, with my mom (his sister) burying him? Which of my five siblings will be the first to suffer from serious illness and die? Will it be me? Will any of my six nieces and nephews die prematurely? My friends?

I went through an exercise of sending loving-kindness to a person you genuinely want to be happy and free of pain. That person was my dad.

I sat there by the Minnehaha Creek and thought of long walks there as a kid with my parents. On those walks I developed a deep love of nature and living things. This love of nature became my central affinity in life. When I sat under those cottonwoods and watched the downy woodpeckers and chickadees, I wondered: by doing so, do I stir up a link to my mom and grandma that reaches beyond life and beyond a diminished mind? Do I commune with family who I can’t really communicate with because they are dead or nonverbal? Or is that bullshit?

Last word

Minneapolis is a great city (but it’s too damn cold for me). I love to visit in the warm months. My family has had losses in terms of death, covid and dementia but we are still a growing family.