On the two year anniversary of Dad's death (Aug 23, 2022), Louise and I (and Facetime attempts with Chris in Vienna) met with the interim pastor at Mom and Dad's church, had a short rite of burial service, and buried Dad's ashes in the cremation plot Dad had picked out at the church. We had waited hoping that other family members might be able to join us but COVID lives on and it was not to be. It was a lovely day with temps in the 80s, a cool breeze, and bright blue skies. After the pastor said the rite of burial, she left us and Louise and I (and sometimes Chris as the connection would allow) sat for an hour listening to some favorite brass music that Dad also loved. It was calm and sweet and perfect. Just what we needed. Afterwards, we couldn't help but go to Costco for pizza and a mocha latte and people watch from the car just as Mom and Dad had done everyday for lunch for many years before Dad got too weak to drive. I can't believe two years have passed already. Mom doesn't remember that he is gone and honestly, she probably does see him on a regular basis. It is a gift that they are still together after 88 years of knowing one another! He is with us all!

Today is my dad's Birthday. It's been two years since he passed and he would have been 94. I haven't visited this site in awhile, but was drawn to it today to fill myself with memories of his love, smiles and all that I miss about him. We marked the day with a four generation ice cream outing - Mom, me (Carol Louise), Caelen (Bruce's daughter), and Aedelle (Caelen's daughter). Mom most often doesn't remember that Dad has passed and mostly that is kinda great as she thinks he is still with her .... and probably is. We didn't tell her we were having ice cream in honor of him, but on some level I'm sure she knew. It was a great way to honor him and his legacy by having four generations together .... and eating ice cream! I miss him. And I feel his love and guidance everyday. Happy Birthday Dad!

Dear Family & Friends,
I now have all the recordings of the Celebration of Life service we held for Dad on August 23, 2021. It is such a blessing to be able to share this gathering with those who were not able to join us in person. The photo with this story is the program of the service. I will add the program photos to the Gallery, too. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byXIUI3gXv0

Here is the recording of the whole slideshow, correctly synced with the music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Txf-JPcpGiw

This is the slide and music played for the "Sending Song. It's just one slide that was shown as the music, "Fanfare for an Angel," played. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InYfwbD9kIo

We were so grateful for the live trumpet and piano music played by Tim Allums of Denver Brass and Jan Hoit on piano. They played the for the hymn, "How Great Thou Art" and the special music solo of "Grace" by Secret Garden. We couldn't think of a better tribute to the man who loved brass music than to have live trumpet music.

We are grateful all of you and the gifts you brought to Dad's life,
Louise 

Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of Dad's passing and we were finally able to have an in person Celebration of Life service. We had waited hoping that by this summer the whole family would be able to attend, but Covid restrictions and fears continue as well as the realities of normal life demands and journeys. But mom was able to attend as well as local family, brother Bruce from Oregon, many dear friends, and Dad's beloved minister, Pastor Ron Bock. Having Pastor Bock lead the service was the only thing Dad really cared about regarding his memorial. Family and friends who could not be with us were there in spirit. It was a celebration of my dad and a celebration of being able to honor him together. It was filled with sweetness, love, grief, friendship and gratitude. It was much needed and it was good. 

We filled the service with lots of good brass music, Dad's favorite, including a soloist from the Denver Brass ensemble. Karen, Bruce, Louise and a very dear friend of Dad's, Barrie Hartman, shared reflections and memories. Bruce also read a message from other good friends, Ed and Nancy Thwaites, who were not able to join us. For the reception at the end, we served Costco cheese pizza in honor of the many years Mom and Dad ate Costco cheese pizza and mocha latte freezes in the Costco parking lot while they people watched. Dad was convinced that the pizza and mochas gave him relief from his Burning Mouth Syndrome. Whether it did or not, their daily ritual brought them joy and new friends at the Costco food court. 

The photo with this story is the poem at the back of the program, selected because of Dad's love of ships. The service was recorded and I will post a link as soon as I have it for anyone who may be interested in viewing it. In the meantime, below are links to a video of a slideshow with music we showed at the beginning and end of the service, as well as the photo with music for the Sending Song, Fanfare for an Angel by James Stephenson. The music with the slideshow is Song for Hope by Peter Meechan. The story for that piece is above - the third story in this string of stories. 

Slideshow and music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Txf-JPcpGiw

Fanfare for an Angel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InYfwbD9kIo

I knew Karen for a pretty long time before I ever met her parents. I must have met them initially at Karen's and Cindy's wedding in Colorado. I am not certain at this point if our son Anten had been born when we eventually visited them on their own turf, in their home in Connecticut. What I do remember is the strong family culture I stepped into there. While it seemed to be a home that was very much the vision of Karen's mother Doris, the very structure of it, its very existence, seemed the doing of Mr. Bensen, Ken. It was held in his capable care.

I never called him Mr. Bensen in person, I refer to him that way here because he very much instilled a sense of respect. As he was tall and well-mannered and distinctly self-possessed, I found him a little intimidating for a long while. But he went out of his way to show his kindliness and to show respect in return, and calling him Ken was not difficult. Nonetheless, I always felt a little bit like a kid in his presence. He would tell us, Anten's collective parents, that we were doing a good job as parents and I always appreciated his emphasizing the point. We all knew that he had never imagined such a life for Karen. But he grew and learned to see life differently rather than standing still in useless disappointment. He was a good Beste (Grandfather) to Anten, working on wood projects with him and being a loving man. And Anten loves him in return.

The Bensens family has always been unique to me because they are so unlike my own family. From the outside looking in, Mr. and Mrs. Bensen, who enjoyed such a long "fairy tale" relationship, were like something out the Saturday Evening Post or Good Housekeeping, very traditional, not only as far as their heritages go, but a middle-class, white, suburban dream. Very "Father Knows Best". They were proof that it actually existed. I am in no way being sarcastic or even joshing them. I understand no one is perfect and that like any family, the Bensens had their share of woes and worries. The family is a close one and it must be in part due to the caring and generous structure that Ken provided.

Because Ken was a tall and strong man, seeing the wearing of age as time went on made his aging particularly poignant. But the Bensens planned well for their old age and Ken made it possible for them to age in a safe place. I'm only sorry that he suffered physically for so long. It feels wrong. Knowing that the suffering is over is some consolation. He was a very stalwart presence and while his absence is powerful, he remains in so many people. I am grateful to him for creating the family I have joined with.

As most of you know, my dad loved music. Growing up he played the piano and the cornet, but his passion was the cornet. Even when he could no longer play, he handled his cornet with love and reverence, referring to it as an “old friend.” Throughout my life I saw how deeply music touched Dad’s soul, and I suspect that his cornet and the music he produced was indeed a friend who saw him through the ups and downs of life.

Not surprisingly, of all the music Dad loved, he particularly loved brass music. One of his most favorite groups was the Canadian Brass. Denver has its own brass ensemble called Denver Brass  and Dad knew just about everything there was to know about them. He saw many Denver Brass concerts over the years and I was pleased to be able to take him to one “on a date” after I moved to Denver. Then in the winter of 2019 we learned there was another, younger local brass ensemble called the Colorado Brass. Karen and I took Mom and Dad to one of their concerts that winter.

It was at this Colorado Brass concert that we all heard the first piece of music you hear when opening this website called Song for Hope. It moved us all to tears and we quickly searched for ways to listen to it again and again. We sent a YouTube link of this piece to the rest of the family who were equally taken by this powerful piece of music. It quickly became the “Bensen theme song” in a way. When the pains, fears and frustrations of his aging body would build up in our stoic dad and we could see the strain of pent up emotions pushing on him, we would bring out this piece of music, wrap him in it, and watch it allow him to release.  

A short background to Song for Hope: It was written for Ryan Anthony by Peter Meechan, a British composer and conductor. Ryan Anthony was an American trumpet player who was a member of the Canadian Brass and played principle trumpet with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. In 2012 Ryan was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, and out of that started a charity, Cancer Blows, to raise awareness and money for cancer research. This piece was dedicated to Ryan and a featured piece in the Cancer Blows charity concert. Ryan passed away on June 23, 2020 and I wouldn’t be surprised if he and my dad have found each other and are playing their heavenly trumpets together.

The second piece of music on this website is called Gabriel’s Oboe and is from the soundtrack for the movie The Mission. I fell in love with this piece years ago when I saw the movie as it moved me in much the same way Song for Hope does. I shared this piece with Dad and it also happened to be on the Cancer Blows CD we got for him. These two pieces just seem to fit together and we often played them together when listening to music with Dad.

We hope this music fills your souls as much as it does the Bensen family’s. Dad taught us about the power and gift of music, and we know that it is now one of the ways he lets us know he is still with us.  

Enjoy the music,
Louise (aka Carol)

I think I was about 27 when I told Mom and Dad that I was a lesbian. It was hard, for me and for them. Dad broke out with Shingles from the stress of the news. But we worked at it over the years. Dad especially kept asking me questions and was curious. I mattered to him, so he wanted to understand. When Cindy and I had our wedding in 1993, we asked Dad to speak at our ceremony to represent all the parents. He was honest about how hard it had been to accept who I was, but that what was important was that I had love in my life and that I was happy. Nothing else was more important to him. There wasn’t a dry eye in those present that day. Even the videographer could be heard sniffing on the recording.

Mom and Dad even wrote a “coming out” letter of their own and sent it to all their friends (the whole Christmas list which was several hundred people!) about learning that their daughter was a lesbian. I have never been so proud of my parents as I was at that moment. They risked losing lifelong friendships by sending that letter. Overwhelmingly, though, they got so much love and support in return, because those are the kinds of friendships they had cultivated in their lives.

Over the years Dad continued to be curious about people he knew little about. He saw a magazine story about transgender individuals and wanted to understand what their lives were like. He asked his grandchildren what they knew and how they felt about it. He listened carefully and had compassion for these complicated lives. He struggled with it, read about it, sat with his thoughts and feelings, asked himself how his God would respond, and he allowed himself to be changed.

Maybe it was because Dad had met and befriended so many people across the world in his travels for work that he had learned to listen, be curious, and ask questions about others’ lives. Or maybe it was in his nature all along and it just served him in the work he did. All I know is that people felt like Dad was always genuinely interested in them.

Last April Dad started on hospice.  Every morning, Kusi, a hospice caregiver, came to help him shower and dress. Kusi was a more recent immigrant from Ghana and fairly soft-spoken. Dad was resistant to being helped so it took a little time for him to warm up to Kusi, but soon Dad started asking questions about Kusi’s life. Dad had been reading in the news about the Black Lives Matter movement and asked him how it was affecting him. Kusi shared that no other patient of his had ever asked him about what it was like being Black in America and that it really touched him that Dad had. They both cried as Kusi shared his experience and in that sharing they bonded and found a deep love and respect for each other.

There is example after example like these above of a man who cared about and was deeply interested in people. He allowed himself to be changed by others. He changed his political affiliation and voting patterns based on learning that various policies were helping or negatively affecting people he cared about. I heard a story on NPR today about how people largely do not change their political affiliations based on facts or input from others’ experiences.  My Dad did because he allowed himself to be changed by his relationships with others. Just one more reason I am so proud to have had him as my father!

Our Dad was an engineer through and through.  He never met something broken he couldn’t fix. We counted on it, in fact. I remember the first time I really noticed his simple genius when he fixed my alarm clock. It turns out that the battery was not connecting to the clock tightly enough to send the charge, so he folded up a little piece of tissue and tucked it behind the connector (what do you call those things?!) to apply just the right amount of pressure for the battery to make the necessary connection to run the clock. Voila! Fixed! It worked for many more years.  It was a simple yet genius solution. That’s the way his brain worked.

After he and Mom moved to Denver to live closer to me, I had him over one day to look at my sprinkler manifold (is that what you call it?) that had burst in a hard freeze overnight. I watched as he held all the pieces in his hands and stared at them for what seemed like a long time. Total silence while he stared. Nothing moved, not his body, not the parts. Finally, he spoke, “Ok, I got it.” Like doing a math problem without pencil and paper, he had fixed my sprinkler in his head.

Life went along like this for Dad. One problem solved after another. One could say it was his life purpose. As Dad aged, though, he was faced with a new kind of problem, his health. He treated each bodily problem that arose as an engineer would. He researched it online, he talked with his Dr. about it, and he tried one possible solution at a time as if running an experiment. He wanted to be sure he knew if it worked or not, so he would not try more than one thing at a time. It wasn’t good science to do so. His genius didn’t work for him on his own body. Medicine didn’t have answers for Dad’s ailments and they didn’t get fixed. While his physical ailments were not life threatening, they were debilitating and not being able to fix them in the way that he was used to doing was soul crushing. I have to wonder if Dad left us because he no longer felt he could fulfill his life purpose as a fixit guy.

The Fixit Guy lives on through his children, however. As Dad declined and Louise and I took care of more and more things and solved more and more of the household issues that popped up in their lives, Dad often commented in amazement at our capabilities and creative problem solving. We reminded him over and over that we had learned those skills from him. And we see them play out in Chris and Bruce and trickle down to the grandkids. The Fixit Guy left a legacy, and a humbled acceptance that none of us could fix the ailing body of a life well lived.

Karen - (youngest daughter) - Thank you to Louise for story edits and suggestions.

He and I connected over photography and he loved showing me his own Camera - still analogue - and telling me stories about the pictures he took with it. On my holiday trips, I always carried my DSLR Camera everywhere and hunted for the most interesting pictures around Colorado. On my first trip to Denver, he made sure to drive us to all the bautiful peaks around Denver. We spent so many hours in the car, and we were so excited! On my second trip to Denver in 2013, during the time that Juliane and I were still at University, I read online about the beautiful sunrise pictures from the Denver Skyline and as we talked about it, Ken immediately had a place in mind, where we could have a good view and was very willing to take me there. This meant getting up at 5am to still have enough time to scope out the place to see, where we would have the best view, driving to the place about 30 Minutes and - since it was November - waiting in the cold morning air for the sun to rise and warm up our fingers :-) we had a lot of fun!! You can see one of the best pictures we took that morning.
This is just one of the moments, that show how Ken has welcomed me into the family and enjoyed getting to know me. I am very grateful for the wonderful times I've had with Ken and I will always carry (more than) his "picture" with me in my heart.

Michael Baier, Julianes (granddaughter) husband

Thank you so much for sharing this with me. Your Dad and Mom projected a picture of enduring love so well.

I have a sweet memory from my early childhood of climbing into bed with my parents on weekend mornings to snuggle. Mom was not an early riser, so the memory is with Dad. I crawled in between them and Dad would rub my back gently. It felt so good! I'm sure he was trying to get me back to sleep so he could catch a few extra winks himself, so when he thought I was asleep, he stopped the back rub at which point I would jiggle my body to communicate that "no, I am not asleep and please do not stop rubbing my back". He would resume and this would go on for a while until it was time to get up. He sure had some stamina! We also had a tradition of family "huggles". Usually these happened in the kitchen and often when Dad got home from work. Any family member around would join in on a group hug. These were comforting and made me feel loved and like I belonged. 
The afternoon before Dad passed, we got to visit him and Mom in their Assisted Living apt. I instinctively crawled into his bed next to him to be close and snuggle one more time. He got the sweetest most blissful look on his face. We were both simultaneously transported back in time I think and I heard him giggle. This was my goodbye to my Dad. It was perfect.

Karen - youngest daughter

Dad and I shared a deep love of music. He was the musician who could play the cornet and piano so well. I was not as gifted in that area, though I enjoyed my years of organ lessons (yes, in-home Hammond organs were a thing in the 60s) as a child. But music fed us both in a similar way. He and I each reached to music for enjoyment, celebration, solace, and to process big emotions. A stirring piece of music brought tears to our eyes. When I took a classical music class in collage (maybe high school??), I was excited to better understand the mechanics of music that my dad knew so well and to be able to more deeply discuss a piece. In high school I became obsessed with a pop group called “Renaissance” whose music was based on and inspired by many classical pieces. The family can certainly attest to my endless playing of their albums. Dad didn’t have much to say about the group back then, but years later Renaissance was part of one of my most cherished music memories with Dad. He was visiting me in Oregon and, as often happened, our discussion turned to music. We ended up sitting on my couch listening to Renaissance (over and over) as I explained what I liked about their music and he joined me in analyzing and appreciating this group. I remember being so touched that he was so attentive to the music, listened so deeply to my feelings about it, and ended up liking their music, too.

Louise (aka Carol) Bensen - middle daughter 

As I have been reflecting on and mourning my dad and all the things I am grateful for, one aspect stands out. My dad saw me. He understood what my interests, skills and drives were and unconditionally supported them and me as they grew, changed and developed. In retrospect, some of the ways in which he supported me now seem extraordinary given the era in which I grew up. While the role of women was beginning to change during my childhood, roles were still mostly very traditional. Despite this, when I showed an interest in building car models – one of his loves – he showed me how and bought me kits. I liked to make and build things, and while there was plenty of sewing, paper doll clothes making, and arts & crafts – Dad also taught me woodworking. Dad taught me things that helped build confidence, competence and independence. I was not the son, yet he taught me to mow the lawn, change my car oil, and fix things. When I left home I discovered an adventurer within me. Dad never balked when I announced the latest adventure I was planning – a year in Norway, being a nanny in Egypt, a solo bike trip in Vermont, a bike trip in Kenya, two years in China, and on and on. The response that sticks with me the most was when I announced I was taking mountain climbing classes in Oregon and intended to climb several glaciated peaks that summer. My protective Mom responded with, “Oh, honey please don’t. It’s so dangerous.” To which my dad responded, “That’s why she is taking the class.” Dad knew that part of me that needed to adventure and he knew he had raised me to have the confidence, competence and thoughtfulness to do so safely. I think a part of him joined me on each of my adventures and I will take him with me on any future ones.

Louise (aka Carol) Bensen - middle daughter 

As a child and even as an adult I did not understand my father's work as an aeronautical engineer. He worked hard and often brought home things to read at night. I can see him sitting in the rocker in the family room doing this while I worked on homework at the kitchen table. But he always made time for me, especially when I was doing math and science homework and got stuck. All he had to do was come into the kitchen and stand next to me. Usually his presence alone gave me the confidence I needed to figure it out. He was gifted in math and science. It was the night that I had a poetry project for my 8th grade English class due the next day that he really stepped up. Poetry was not really his thing (although he has written many beautiful loving words on greeting cards over the years). But this man, my Dad, stayed up past midnight with me as I struggled to pull poetry out of my being. We laughed and composed and laughed. Here is the poem Dad wrote that night in January, 44 years ago. You gotta love it!
                                                                      by Ken Bensen

Karen - youngest daughter