Good evening! Before we stop positing on CB we would like to thank all of you for your love and support over the last 3 years. We were so touched by the special time on Saturday as we celebrated dad's life in Minnesota at his memorial service. In addition to the people there in person we know that there were many who were praying for us from afar. We felt your prayers! Thank you from the entire Bodin family. 

I uploaded some pictures from the service to the site and will attempt to add a video link to a video that played before the service. 

Video Link:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-GDSDc2FPuOd46smlz1pj4o_YqKivDlM/view?usp=sharing 

Eulogy: 

Dad was born May 31,1950 to Elnora Strum Bodin and Jerry Bodin in Duluth, MN. The Bodin house quickly became a lively home with three boys when his brothers Rick and Tim were born. Grandpa Jerry worked in the local US Steel Plant “scheduling office”, and only a few miles east, Grandma worked as a teller at Western National Bank in West Duluth. The Bodin boys were normal kids who had a mischievous side too, where they tested the limits with their parents.  But make no mistake, Grandma and Grandpa were in charge!

The family moved to Esko over Christmas vacation during dad’s 4th grade year which he said was the “best move he ever made.” During the 4th grade dad met the love of his life Anne Carlson.  Dad recently expressed that even in elementary school he understood that mom triggered feelings in him that were different from how he felt towards the other girls.  He acknowledged that even then, God was knitting them together in a way that would take time for him to fully understand.  Dad also developed other friendships during these early years in Esko that are still incredibly special to this day. One of his elementary school friends shared, “The gift of Jeff's friendship and brotherhood has been one of the great blessings of my life. I would not be the person I am today without him”. Our family has been blessed to read messages or talk to others over the years who considered dad a brother which says a lot about the kind of friend he was. During his school years dad demonstrated that he was a high achiever. He was class President his senior year, and he was also awarded by the National Honor Society for scholastic achievement. 

In February of 1969 dad jumped the gun and asked mom to marry him on the 7th because he couldn’t wait until Valentine's Day.  Dad was a freshman at the University of Minnesota at the time.  They married that year in October.  Dad had a friend Gary in a math class who had also married that fall.  Gary was a former pastor and was always encouraging dad in his faith and asking him to attend a Campus Crusade for Christ meeting.  Finally, one Friday night he went with mom as he thought she'd like it.  That night a fellow who was a Roman-Greco wrestler shared how his relationship with Jesus as the Lord of his life had changed everything.  He said it's one thing to know about Him but another thing to let Him be Lord over your life.  That night, dad prayed with one of the guys there asking Jesus to be His Lord and Savior.  It truly was a defining moment that changed everything, especially his motivation for what to do with his life.  It gave dad more of a heart to serve people and shortly after this time he changed his career choice from electrical engineering to medicine.

Dad had an expansive list of hobbies throughout his life, one of which was music. One of his favorite bands was the Beatles. He taught himself how to play the guitar, which is a good thing since he was not blessed with a singing voice. During high school dad and his friends had a band called The Music Factory.  When dad wasn’t pursuing his hobbies outdoors, playing guitar, participating in team sports, practicing with the band, fixing cars, and teaching himself how to weld, he was tinkering with electronics, repairing TVs and radios, building speakers, echo chambers and dreaming of his future passion: ham radios.  Dad was always up to something!

While growing up, Dad, his friends, and brothers spent a lot of time in the Bodin family basement “messing around,” talking and debating about life, philosophy, science, politics, religion, and girls.  Our grandma used to say it was hard to get dad to come up from the basement for dinner if he was working on one of his projects. His brothers will never forget the time in their basement when they shut off the circuit breaker feeding dad’s electronic work bench.  Dad plugged in the “hopefully repaired “TV, then the three of them watched from the circuit box as they turned the power on, wondering whether there would be any explosion. Fortunately, there was no explosion.  Over time dad advanced his electronics journey into ham radio as a mid-teen, connecting with other operators from around the world. Fortunately for us, he could fix pretty much anything which saved our home thousands of dollars over the years with his determination and willingness to “figure things out.”   

Even as a young boy dad began to develop his lifelong love for the outdoors and the Boy Scouts where he learned to hunt, trap, fish, and camp. Once when checking his traps as a kid, dad encountered a live skunk.  When he tried to free it, he got sprayed, and the odor at the Bodin home and school for 1-2 weeks was near legendary. Dad eventually completed the requirements to become an Eagle Scout. Over the years dad shared many aspects of his love for the outdoors with mom, his kids, and grandkids. One of his favorite places to take the grandkids fishing was at Farrish, a military recreational area about a mile from their house in the mountains of Colorado. The water was clear, the backdrop beautiful, and one of his very best friends and hunting buddies Gary managed the operations there. I am not sure how much fishing dad was able to do when all of us were there with our kids, but it was super fun to sit or stand on the side of the water and watch dad interact with the grands and teach them the ropes. Opa and his “good buddy” club talked about life and made many memories there.

Dad proudly served in the US Air Force as an officer from September 1991-September 2008. He was deployed as the commander of the Air Transportable Hospital during the Rwanda crisis, to Turkey in support of Operation Northern Watch and to Afghanistan where he earned a bronze star.

Dad would tell you he wasn’t the smartest guy, but he was known for being hard working, humble, and a very dedicated physician who considered all that he did, just another day at the office. Dad would continue to assess, test, and eliminate diagnoses until he could figure out what was going on with his patients. He would take the time to consult with people around the country if he thought someone else had something one of his patients needed. Patients and families alike knew he would do everything he could to help them even if he couldn’t heal them. Many of the nurse’s dad worked with over the years said he was the best, or among the best that they had ever worked with. As a nurse, I know that praise is not easily earned.  They appreciated the way he cared for people, took the time to teach them, respected their efforts, and often got tickled at the colorful way he communicated unusual situations.  “Coincidentally”, each time we moved, dad’s coworkers and staff would give him some sort of parting gift that memorialized those colorful conversations over the years. Dad spent time with his patients in and out of the office. Many of his patients and their families are friends to this day. His last phone call with non-family was with a former patient and dear friend. This call almost made him late for his check in time at the Hospice House. His friend had a close call with a combine and high voltage electricity. Dad prayed with him and continued to wonder about how he was feeling less than two days before he died. I called his friend from the Hospice House so that I could reassure dad that he could put up his stethoscope and leave the doctoring to someone else. People who knew dad from this aspect of life may not have always seen his lighter side. I think he lived a lot of his days as a physician problem solving and trying to make sure he left no stone unturned. Over the years, mom supported dad while he took care of others by taking care of us and many things in our home. Dad credited mom for a lot of his success in his career and life. I know today is about dad, but I would be remiss if I didn’t pause to say how well mom loved dad all these years, and how spectacularly she cared for him over these last 3 years. Mom, you were amazing. Mom would say it was Jesus!

Dad enjoyed good food, especially my mom’s cooking and baking. He loved butter, real whip cream, and was not a fan of diet drinks or anything low fat. He could make a mean cappuccino which he made almost every morning for years. When we visited, you would often wake up to the sound of him frothing milk to just the right temperature. Dad also loved to grill and was a big fan of his Pit Boss. For several years dad had his pilot license and enjoyed scuba diving. He loved team sports, especially football and basketball. He was not a gym guy but really enjoyed getting out on the basketball court wherever we lived with players young and old. One of his greatest joys as an Opa was seeing his grandsons play basketball. He also admired the work ethic of his granddaughter who ran cross country and track even though he would not have enjoyed running himself. Dad didn’t do anything halfway including playing Pac-Man or Rook. It is a surprise our kitchen table survived many years of Rook playing.

No matter where we lived dad really enjoyed visiting with others and hosting neighbors in our home. If he wasn’t working, enjoying a hobby, or doing something around the house he was likely at church. Dad enjoyed talking about politics and problems of the world, but he loved talking about Jesus more. Over the years he shared Jesus with many. He was not perfect, none of us are, but he gave my sisters and I the greatest gift he ever could have given when he and mom took us to church and shared Jesus with us. If you talked to dad in the last years and months of his life most other things of this world increasingly faded to the background and his faith became more and more important. It was hard to see his physical health decline and ability to do the things he enjoyed slowly being taken away. He could have been negative, but he chose to read his bible more and one of his favorite books Imagine Heaven. He found a lot of comfort in his faith and prayed that everyone who was important to him would one day know Jesus in the way he did. In his “5 Wishes” document it asks, if anyone asks how I want to be remembered, please say, “I tried and sometimes succeeded but other times I failed, sometimes miserably. I am eternally grateful for the underserved love, forgiveness, mercy, and grace extended to me by my Lord, family, friends and even strangers.”

There is no way in a short time I could capture everything about our dad, but I hope at least part of what I said resonates with the Jeff that you knew. Before closing, I want to thank all of you, our extended family, and friends for the love you have shown us, and for the love you showed dad. He loved all of you very much. In the last 6 months of his life dad struggled with finding his words and thinking clearly due to his medications and disease process. Many of you regularly wrote, texted, and called him spending hours encouraging and talking about life. Your love and patience during that very difficult time brought a lot of joy to his day. We are grateful to each of you for helping be a bright spot throughout dad’s life, especially these last few months. As dad would often say when he finished communicating on his Ham Radio: WA0VOM signing off, 73 which means best regards.