Thank You

I want to thank everyone who has been with us through this past 15 months. We appreciated all your prayers, cards, meals, visits, shopping trips and offers of help and support.

Norm's co-workers at Drug Information met us just about every month for lunch or dinner while he was able to get out. He really looked forward to those meals, to talk "shop".

A special thanks to Pat and Carl, Vergenia and John and Judy whom I can never repay, if I live to be 100.

I have to thank my nursing career because even though I never wanted to be a nurse, I don't know if I could have kept Norm home until the end without that experience and confidence that I could do it. The Kaiser hospice team was there with us every step of the way and I knew that their help was just a phone call away.

Our family was so pleased with the service. It was a beautiful day and Norm would have been so touched by the wonderful turnout and sense of community.

Norman Dale Muilenburg

Norman Dale Muilenburg was born Aug. 11, 1943 in Pipestone, Minnesota to Elmer and Frieda Muilenburg. He attended South Dakota State University and graduated with a BS in Pharmacy in 1966. He entered Peace Corps training for Ethiopia in 1967 and met his wife, Margie. He served in Addis Ababa as a pharmacy instructor until June 1969. On returning to the States, they lived in Minnesota for four years before moving to Portland in 1973.

Norm was a pharmacist’s pharmacist in his role in Drug Information at Kaiser for the past twenty years. He also worked at Good Samaritan and St. Vincent’s hospitals. In 1979, he was recognized as Oregon Hospital Pharmacist of the Year.

Norm and Margie are the parents of Andrew and Peter. They delighted in their daughters-in –law, Ali and Tracy, and grandchildren, Brady, Lucy, Drew, Sofie and soon to be, Emma.
Norm was known for his wit, his love of sports, especially baseball and especially the Dodgers, his love of travel and his love of Larue. He will be missed not only by his immediate family but also by his sisters and their families, Marilyn and Stuart Wilson and Myrna and Koos Kryger, three nephews and niece, mother-in-law Mary Beth Powers, dear friends John and Judy Jendrzejewski, along with a host of colleagues, neighbors and friends.

Donations may be made to Friends of the National Library of Medicine, 7900 Wisconsin Ave. NW Suite 200, Bethesda, MD 20814 or to Kaiser Hospice, 2701 NW Vaughn St., Ste 140, Portland, OR 97210.

A celebration of life will be held at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 19th at The Stockpot Broiler, 8200 SW Scholls Ferry RD, Beaverton, OR 97008.

(The obituary will be published in Wednesday's Oregonian - and also on www.oregonlive.com)

Valentine's Day

It started on Thanksgiving 2009 and ended Valentine's Day 2011. Norm passed away this morning around 9:15. Even though I knew it was coming, it is surreal and hard to believe. The hospice people at Kaiser were all great and I can't thank them enough. Everyones prayers really were answered in that he had no pain really, just discomfort the last week from the bed rest. We will have a celebration of life on Sat. Feb. 19th at 11 am at the Stockpot 8200 Sw Scholls Ferry Rd. Beaverton.

Prejudice

In Memphis at the time, a black person could take a seat on public transportation, but only if the seat was vacant. If a white person was seated on the inside, a black person could not sit on the outside seat. So there could be a bus with half the seats open and all the black passengers standing.

I remember riding the bus with our relatives and being aware of this and feeling so uncomfortable and wanting to get off the bus.

Happy Birthday, Abe

Today, Feb. 12th is Lincoln's birthday. It was also my grandmother's birthday. She was born Margaret Elizabeth Gallagher in 1900 or 1901, depending on how old she wanted to be when asked . She was one of eight children. One brother died in the Influenza epidemic of WW1 and another at birth. Mimi( my name for her) always said her mother never got over the baby's death. She outlived all of her brothers and sisters, which amazed her, as she said she was always sickly as a child. She grew up in the Roaring Twenties and was a flapper and went to speak easies. She married in 1921 and gave birth to one daughter, Mary Beth, my mother, in 1923.

Mimi was a character- nosy- getting the dirt on everyone, loved reading fan magazines. She also was very generous- would give you the shirt off her back. She loved connecting people with common needs. More on this later...

A typical story: We went to Memphis, Tennessee with my great aunt, Kay, taking the Greyhound bus. Children under four were free but I was six and quite tall. I was absolutely mortified as we got on the bus and the driver said to my grandmother " How old is she?" She nudged me ahead and didn't bat an eye declaring that I was four. Next time ..more of the Memphis trip.

The Norman Muilenburg School of Gardening

As spring approaches and crocus and daffodils poke their heads up, I can't help but think of Norm with his gardening hat on. (As an aside, had Norm and I not had children, I doubt that we would have had a house or a yard. )

He did yard work reluctantly, never planting anything new, basically just beating down what was already here. Once, he ripped out a juniper that was in a line of other junipers, not caring that now there was just a big hole where there should have been something.

I never trusted him to prune when I wasn't home.

Our neighbor of many years, Virginia Steenson, was a gardener and when the kids were here playing ball, she didn't care for their balls coming into her yard crushing her tender plants. She planted Arbor Vitae on both her front yard borders. After she passed away, her daughter and son-in-law moved in. One day when I was working and Norm was off, I came home to find the BOTTOM 2 feet of Arbor Vitae branches sawed off. " Norm, what have you done? Those aren't ours," I said. He answered, " I just got carried away." He said the same thing to Paul, the son-in-law when questioned about the event. I think he took all his frustrations out on the yard.

FYI

Norm has always wanted to be an anatomical donor. I found out today that because of his cancer only his corneas could be transplanted. He would not be eligible to be a tissue or organ donor. Two people, however, could each get one of his corneas and have their sight restored.