Scholarship and Columbarium

I received good news from the OSU Foundation that Curt's Scholarship is now fully endowed at $25,000. This will generate income for annual scholarships of at least $1,000. If the endowment grows, the scholarship can increase, or possibly generate two scholarships (unlikely). They have awarded the first scholarship to a student who will be a senior next year. According to their information - "He is a College of Engineering Dean's Scholar, and among the best and brightest in the program."
Also, the church is going to use some of Curt's church memorial money to hire a landscape architect to draw up plans for columbarium "garden" at our church. This is going to take awhile. It has to be approved by a couple committees in church, the city planners, and then by the congregation. We won't have the full plans until October. But things are moving.
I am keeping busy, but still miss Curt. I spent last week at Eagle Crest in Central Oregon with Angie's family. I am leaving for Beth's in Schaumburg, IL on Tuesday (July 13). Angie and the girls will join us the following week. Next weekend I will go with Beth, Aaron and Sam to the Wisconsin Dells, where Aaron is playing in a baseball tournament. On July 23 we will all drive to Aurelia, IA for a Stutz Family Reunion. Jef will join us there. I will return to Oregon with the Baker family from Omaha on July 26. I am looking forward to Meryl Simpson coming for a visit from England on September 2-16. On September 24 I am flying to Boston for a one week Trafalgar tour of the Fall Foliage with 2 other couples from church. I will stop at Beth's on the way home and return to Oregon on October 7. While I was at Eagle Crest, I had my living room painted and added crown molding. He also painted the hallway. I bought myself a Wii and the Bakers and Bogners gave me Wii Fit for my birthday (tomorrow). I also bought myself another TV in my bedroom.
I miss having Curt proof read this.

Update

I haven't had a chance to write here lately. There is a lot of paper work to do, and I have started back in my "old routine" (tennis, bridge, Folk Club, church, etc.).
I think I mentioned trying to attach Angie's slide show. I don't think I can upload a Power Point file. There are over 200 pictures in the slide show and I don't want to upload all of them. If you were able to download the video of the service, part of the slide show is in that.
I have Curt's ashes here at home and am waiting to see what happens at our church. That could take awhile.
Angie is coming tomorrow to start going through Curt's personal things. It is hard to look at them. The whole Baker family might return next weekend.
I want to maintain all Curt's work in our yard and have arranged for lawn care. I have some things that still need to be planted though (not included in the maintenance).
I still hope to get personal thanks yous written someday!

Memorial Service

It was wonderful to see all the people who came to celebrate Curt's life at his Memorial Service last Saturday (I think over 300). My house is slowly getting more quiet. Today Beth, Angie and I took Jason, Aaron, Sam and Andrea Simpson to the Portland airport. Andrea was on the same flight to Chicago where she was connecting with her flight to London. The other out-of-town relatives started to leave late Saturday afternoon. Beth and Angie will stay here until Friday. A former neighbor took pictures and video (about 1 hour) of the service. To view this you need to go to http://bit.ly/cfeF8E. I think the file is 1.5 gb. I didn't know he was going to do this, and it was a great surprise. Angie also made a slide show of old pictures that we showed before the service and at the reception/lunch in the Community Center afterwards. I might try to attach that on a later blog.

By the way we had a great time at the beach in Seaside. The weather was good and the house was big, very nice, and close to the ocean. We celebrated Aaron's birthday on March 23 by him feeding sea lions at the Aquarium, riding bumper cars and visiting Ft. Clapsop (Lewis & Clark). The next day we climbed the Astoria Column (164 steps) with spectacular views and exploring the batteries and grounds of Ft. Stevens.

Obituary

I have submitted an obituary for Curt to the Corvallis Gazette Times, Quad City Times, and (Moline) Dispatch. The Dispatch already has it online at www.qconline.com. I'm not sure when it will appear in our paper.

Plans

Everything is set for the service on Saturday, March 27, at 10 AM at the First United Methodist Church in Corvallis. There will be a light lunch afterwards in our Community Center. We hope you can all come.
Curt was cremated today. He has always said that is what he wanted. He even mentioned one time putting some ashes on the pitchers mound. I would like to make a contribution to our church for a Columbarium for his ashes and for other members in the future. This would be different way for you to contribute, besides the Curtis Cook Computer Science scholarship through the Oregon State University Foundation, Benton Hospice, or the Cancer Society.
I am still working on an obituary and keep getting distracted, etc.!
Thank you again for all your support!

Making Plans

We have decided we would like to have Curt's memorial service at 10 AM on Saturday, March 27. This needs to be confirmed by our church (First United Methodist in Corvallis), but our minister indicated that date should be free. We want to have a light lunch afterwards in our church's Community Center. If anyone would like to make contributions, a Curtis Cook scholarship for an OSU Computer Science student has been set up with the OSU Foundation. We would also like to support our church, Benton County Hospice and the Cancer Society.
Before all this happened we had planned to rent a house in Seaside from Monday, March 22, to Thursday, March 25. We have decided this would be good time to spend together as a family. Beth is now here with the Baker family. The rest of her family is going to arrive this Saturday and probably return after the weekend of the 27th.
I don't know how to thank everyone for all the support we have received. It has been a great comfort to me and our family (as well as it was to Curt).

The End

While I have a few minutes in all the hubbub, I want to share that Curt passed away last night. Curt's breathing continued to be heavy yesterday. I called Hospice a couple times and gave him some Lorazepam about 8:30 and midnight last night. I slept on a cot next to sofa and woke up about 1:30 with him flaying around (and partly on my cot) and having difficulty breathing. I called the Hospice nurse on duty (Chrissy), and she came over after 2 AM. She gave him morphine to help with the breathing. This made him flay some more, so she gave him more Lorazepam too. That did not work either, so she gave him some Valium. That seemed to do the job. She was here over 1 1/2 hours and talked about how bad this cancer is. It grows quickly and was impinging on his air supply. She thought the Valium should last about 4 hours and told us to get some sleep. I was going to get a hospital bed and caregiver today and see about sedating him. I did go back to sleep listening to his snoring, but Sue thought it got quiet around 5 AM. Jack and Sue woke me about 7:30 and said they thought Curt had passed away. They called Hospice and Linda was here right away. She removed all Hospice things and made important phone calls. The Huffords and Reistads are here and helping out. We caught Beth before she got on the airplane here. Angie packed and is driving down now. Jef is going to get Beth and bring the girls down later. We have lots of things to take care of now.
Curt was strong until the end. He walked with his walker to bathroom at 9:30 last night. On Tuesday night he played a couple rounds of Mexican Train Dominoes (with lots of help) with Gordon and me. I don't think he was in pain. He did not ask for any pain medicine, but did have the patch. Chrissy said she didn't see any furrows in his brow to indicate pain. He is finally at peace now. We hope to decide on time for a memorial service by this evening. I want to talk to the girls. I am thinking of Friday or Saturday next week (March 26 or 27).