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Lisa Hodgson Remembers Her Son Ryan and His Love for Life, Family, and Friends

Ron Johns
Lisa Hodgson holds a photo of her son Ryan.
Ryan had a hard time resting. He didn’t want to sleep. And he needed to sleep. He couldn’t sleep. He was working so hard to breathe all the time. And there was a time when I was, you know, one time I was sitting there and I just had my eyes closed, and he was like, “Mom, are you tired?”

Lisa Hodgson  

Okay. Okay. Lisa Hodgson and I was born here in LeMars, Iowa, in 1961. And I am the HR Specialist at Floyd Valley Healthcare here in LeMars.

Mark Munger  

So. Paint the picture of your, of your life before the pandemic. So life in 2019. What would a typical day be like?

Lisa Hodgson  

Okay, well if it was Monday through Friday, I would be going to work and, you know, just doing my job basically, and meeting with employees, some, you know, interviews, and going to lunch, going to coffee break after work, going, you know, shopping, running errands. My husband and I like to try new restaurants, so we quite often go out for dinner in the evening and, you know, with each other or just with, with friends. And life was pretty free and easy. We ride motorcycles, we like to go do that. Yeah, we ride motorcycle and go do that…visit family

Mark Munger

Just to be very active?

Lisa Hodgson

Yeah. Social. Yeah. Yep.

Mark Munger

Are there groups of people that you ride your motorcycles with?

Lisa Hodgson

Oh, absolutely. several. Several, yeah. We like to, matter fact, was it 2019 that we went to Madison, Wisconsin. Is that not when we went to Wisconsin? 1400 miles. 1200 miles. Four days.

Mark Munger

Really?

Lisa Hodgson

Yeah. Wow, that was good trip. That must have been to Prairie Du Chien. Yeah. Yeah, yeah we're active. I mean, we don't, we don't sit around much.

Mark Munger  

Right. What's your favorite restaurant? In town?

Lisa Hodgson 

Favorite restaurant in town? I'll probably Archie’s?

Mark Munger

Steakhouse?

Lisa Hodgson

Probably Archie’s is my favorite. You know?

Mark Munger  

And then, so you're living your life riding your motorcycles, right?

Lisa Hodgson  

Oh, yeah.

Mark Munger  

Do you remember, when you first heard about COVID-19

Lisa Hodgson  

It probably, it was on the news. A news clip about a virus that was leaked from a lab in China. That kind of thing, I think, was the first, my first exposure to it. I remember not thinking much of it. Other than that doesn't sound good. And, and, and even, you know, in the beginning, when it started kind of spreading out of China and to different places in the world, you know, I kind of, I remember even thinking about it being like Ebola. And, you know, is it gonna be similar to that? And yeah, I mean, never did I feel, like, threatened by it, or really all that terribly concerned about it. Just that, yeah, it sounds like, you know, I've worked in healthcare for almost 26 years, and, you know, there's been SARS and Ebola and all that's happened during my healthcare career. And so I just thought…

Mark Munger  

it just seemed like yeah, pandemics never really made it here, somehow?

Lisa Hodgson  

Yeah. Yeah. It just didn't. Yeah, I don't know. And then, then I remember when it was, you know, in New York City, and, and then, you know, then when they were getting a little closer to home, and then it was in Omaha, and my good friend that, her son got it in Omaha. Probably one of the very first people in Omaha that had it, and he was very sick. And, you know, thinking, “Oh, that's unfortunate that he was that sick.”

Mark Munger

So you had a friend whose son had it?

Lisa Hodgson

Yes.

Mark Munger

Really?

Lisa Hodgson

Yes. Really, really quickly. He had been to a real estate convention. I think somewhere like in either North or South Carolina. And somebody gave it to him there.

Mark Munger

Oh, my.

Lisa Hodgson

Mmhmm

Mark Munger

Well that must have been scary? To, like, have it happen that close?

Lisa Hodgson

Yeah, he was pretty sick, but I never thought he was so sick that he was going to die. But he was pretty… I remember, you know, we were talking, how sick he was.

Mark Munger

Yeah. Having to go to the hospital, and… yeah

Lisa Hodgson

I think he was maybe in the hospital, like, a day or two.

Mark Munger

Hmm. And then, when at work did you start seeing changes amongst us?

Lisa Hodgson

Ummm, you know, I think when, when it started getting closer to home and they were talking about people in Plymouth County getting Covid, and, um, our community health nurse is also a friend of mine, and she was talking about, you know, all the things that were coming her direction as a public… as a County health nurse. And, yeah, it was like, yeah, this wasn’t going to be good. And you know, and then Floyd Valley started putting safety precautions in place for us to protect our patients and our staff and, you know, and then wearing masks and screening patients at the door, and then it was like, yeah, this is getting to be kind of real. And our administrator sent out an email, you know, telling everybody that they really wanted us, umm, as Floyd Valley employees, health care leaders in our community, to adhere to the mask mandate in public so that people that saw us that knew that we were Floyd Valley employees would start to take, follow suit and wear masks to that, know that, you know, we feel it's important. And they really were encouraging us to do that, to set the standard for the community.

Mark Munger  

That was that. Was that… did that make you worried to have to do that?

Lisa Hodgson  

Yeah, it did. I mean, it was scary. There's no doubt about it. I mean, I was concerned about it. And I have autoimmune lung disease. And I thought that I'm not so sure how this respiratory illness is going to affect me. So, I really didn't want to get it. And so it was like, Well, I'm wearing a mask.

Mark Munger  

And you're in dangerous places. You know, I mean, the sense that the virus will be around, yes, you had patients that were there?

Lisa Hodgson  

The patients that were there, right, and, and you know, and we knew there were people in the community that had had COVID. And you don't, then you hear stories. I mean, I've heard stories with people like, yeah, have been diagnosed with COVID and then went to Walmart and got some medicine but never wore a mask. And, you know, it was like, oh, yeah, we heard a lot of stories, like people doing stuff like that.

Mark Munger

Yeah. Well, that's concerning.

Lisa Hodgson

Yeah. Well, it is concerning, and they just, I don't know that they really, I don't know that everybody thought it was so serious, right? Or, you know, just a cold, just the flu. And it's like, you know, I mean, I think even in the beginning, I kind of wondered if maybe it wasn't just, like, maybe just a bad flu. And until, you know, you started hearing stories about people dying and hospitals having, not knowing, not knowing what to do, you know, big places like New York City, not knowing what to do with all the deaths and the bodies and, and the problems of that. And, you know, that got to be kind of scary.

Mark Munger  

And were you seeing, like, serious cases at Floyd Valley?

Lisa Hodgson 

I believe they did? Yeah, I don't have a lot of patient exposure, so I don't really know. But I do believe they did. I mean, I just know of stories within the community, of people that were, you know, transferred out of Floyd valley with COVID. And had, I had a co worker that got COVID and passed away. And it was hard.

Mark Munger  

And you were part of the screening? When it started happening, you were screening?

Lisa Hodgson  

Yeah. So, employees that, that could give up some time in their day. We had to screen patients at the door. So we were scheduled and had to take turns at the door. I really did not want to do that.

Mark Munger  

Do you remember the first time you went out?Did you wear the gown? And…

Lisa Hodgson  

I don't know that we wore gowns. We did, we may have? I kind of forgot, really, but I know I wore a mask and gloves and a face shield. And we had to take, you know, Tom sent us the screening questions about, you know, if they had been exposed to COVID, if they have a cough or cold or fever. And…

Mark Munger  

I remember walking up to the screener at work and just being terrified.

Lisa Hodgson 

Really?

Mark Munger

That I would have a temperature. You know, I didn't feel sick, but the moment before, just being afraid.

Lisa Hodgson  

We had to take our temperatures at home before we even went to work.

Mark Munger

Oh, sure.

Lisa Hodgson

Then take them again when we got to work.

Mark Munger

Yeah. Who’s screening the screeners? But then eventually, you were saying, you hired…

Lisa Hodgson

We did.

Mark Munger

People specifically for that?

Lisa Hodgson

Yeah, we hired some, umm, door screeners. They were students, umm, either high school students or college students, and the high school students, a lot of them were children of employees. And I had the privilege of managing that group. And they were, um, they were great. For high school students, they took it so seriously, and, they, you know, would take temperatures, ask the questions, and “Here’s your mask” if people came in without masks.

We had volunteers, so, masks at Floyd Valley, lots of them, because there was a shortage of masks. So we had lots of cloth masks. And we would, our housekeeping department would launder them and so we could reuse them. Super hot water.

Mark Munger  

Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. To think of that process.

Lisa Hodgson 

Yes. Yeah. And you know, just for that, for that, even that department, housekeeping department at a hospital, you know, things change drastically about cleaning and, and cleaning a room after a COVID patient was there?

Mark Munger

That would be anxiety filling.

Lisa Hodgson

Yeah. Especially in the beginning, when we didn't really know how it was fully transmitting.

Mark Munger  

Right? And at home, you're, I mean, your life is changing, too, because you're not able to go to restaurants anymore.

Lisa Hodgson  

Yep, don't go out to restaurants, don't go to see our children. Umm, pretty much stay away from our friends. And even running errands was very deliberate. And in the means of the… I went very limited times to the store. And when I did, I had a big list of very specific things. And I even did my lists according to the layout of the store.

Mark Munger 

Oh, you did?

Lisa Hodgson

Yes.

Mark Munger

You mapped the store?

Lisa Hodgson  

I did. I mapped the store. So I could just go in and get what I wanted. Never went down aisles where there were other people, so I could avoid them. Yeah, yeah. I because I was concerned. And Terry really didn't see a lot of people because he works for the county. And so he didn't, so I did the majority of the errands and

Mark Munger

Terry's your husband.

Lisa Hodgson

Yeah. Yeah. So because he wasn't really out as much as I was. So, I planned to do it when I thought the stores weren't busy. You know, a lot of times I'd get groceries like at 8:30 at night.

Mark Munger

And would there be other people there?

Lisa Hodgson

Very few. Perfect. Yeah.

Mark Munger

It's a lonely existence.

Lisa Hodgson

Yeah. It was, it was lonely.

Mark Munger  

Yeah. Well, in this time, though, you had two grandchildren?

Lisa Hodgson  

I did. I had. Our granddaughter was born in December, our first grandchild in December of 2019. And we went to see her in January. But at that point, COVID wasn't real. I don't think it was really all that. January of 2020.

Mark Munger  

My memory of January was, I'd heard about it. Yeah. It was in China. Yeah. People were sick there. But yeah, yeah. I don't remember it really even being in the United States.

Lisa Hodgson  

No, I, yeah, I guess we, because we, like, said we went up there in January. And to see them and, yeah, because they live in an apartment, and so we stayed in a hotel and things like that. So that really wasn't.

Mark Munger

And this is in Des Moines?

Lisa Hodgson

They live in Minneapolis.

Mark Munger

Oh, in Minneapolis? In Minneapolis.

Lisa Hodgson: Yep. Yep. Our daughter lives in Des Moines. And then our daughter had a baby in November of 21, November 21. Okay. Yeah, yeah, that's when he was born. But we didn't get to see him until he was six months old. Because they just weren't not taking any risks. My daughter had a hard time with me going, going to work. She really thought I should be staying home and working from home. And I really didn't have that kind of job. I mean, can't really interview people from home. I mean, you can do so many Zoom meetings, but, but I still really felt like the people contact was important. And I did. I did work at home for like about a week once because I had a cold, and I hated it. I absolutely hated it. And I was like, No, I'm, I'm coming into the office and, yeah, so she, she had a hard, our daughter, had a hard time with it. And she didn't want really want to understand, you know, even listen to, to the process that Floyd Valley had put in place to protect employees. They had, you know, I, I chose to do this, but I pretty much ate lunch and took coffee break with the same group of people every, every day. But in our cafeteria, they removed about half the chairs. And so we sat as socially distanced as we possibly could. During that time we, without masks,

Mark Munger  

Yeah. I remember seeing things like that and thinking we live in a very different world. Yes, you don't just… that staging of a cafeteri...

Lisa Hodgson  

Well, to be, right, to be, to be afraid, basically, to be close to your co-workers and to your friends. And because you don't know where they're going or what they're doing and, and how they're doing it and conversations with our friends about what they did, you know, and how they did it. And so then we did basically choose a very small group of friends that we would see. A very small group, like two other couples. Yeah, literally.

Mark Munger  

A very small circle.

Lisa Hodgson

Yeah, it was it. Yeah.

Mark Munger

Well, on the, on the day of your grandson's birth, yes. Can you tell me about that day?

Lisa Hodgson  

Sure, my husband was, was, we were home when my daughter called and said, you know, that she wanted to talk to us, video chat with us. And we pretty much knew that she probably had the baby, but my husband hadn't been feeling good. And he had a co-worker that was really sick. And his co-worker, we pretty sure was pretty sure he had COVID. And there was no COVID, really, there wasn't on that huge availability of COVID tests. And, so, because I worked in health care, if I was exposed to somebody with COVID, I had to be tested. So I went and had a COVID test. I was negative. But then, I think it was the next day, my daughter called and wanted a video chat with us because she had had her baby. And, so I talked to her and then she's like, well, where's Dad? Like, well, Dad's living in the basement. And, and, because we think he was exposed to COVID. And he's got a cold, and there's no place for him to get a test. And, but I will get the phone, give him the phone, so you can talk to him. And, yeah, and she was not very happy about that. She acted like, you know, that we were hiding, hiding the fact that he was sick, and that we would expose them. And it's like, no, I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to worry about your dad. And, yeah, so she was, she was very upset about it. And yeah, and hasn't really had much to do with us since.

Mark Munger  

That’s so sad.

Lisa Hodgson: Yeah

Mark Munger: But you did later see the grandson?

Lisa Hodgson  

We did. We did get to go see him. They allowed us to come see him when he was six months old and it was summer. So we got to go and spend some time with him then.

Mark Munger  

What's his name?

Lisa Hodgson

Jack.

Mark Munger

Jack. That's sweet. Yeah, it was a time. I mean, having done some of these oral histories, um, it was such a time of trauma, of people trying to figure out the world.

Lisa Hodgson

Mmhmm

Mark Munger

And being upset that people didn’t see the world the same way that they saw it.

Lisa Hodgson

I do think that’s part of it. You know?

Mark Munger

It was so hard.

Lisa Hodgson

Yeah.

Mark Munger

Because we were trying to grasp at, like, well, “How do we live, and how do we???”

Lisa Hodgson

So, we, we decided, because we couldn’t really go out and do a lot of things, that we were going to redo the main floor of our house. So, that was our COVID project. So we put in hardwood floors and replaced all our trim and doors, and, because you could go to Menards!

Mark Munger

For the record, it is really nice!

Lisa Hodgson

Thank you! Thank you. Yeah, so we could go to Menards. It’s not quite done yet, by the way.

Mark Munger

Really?

Lisa Hodgson

No. But, ah, yeah because when summer came and, and we were kind of COVID-free, we took a break!

Mark Munger

So, went at it!

Lisa Hodgson

Yeah. It was like, “Okay, we’re getting older now.” We don’t know how much more time we have where we’re physically able to ride our motorcycle and go boating and do the things we like to do, so, yeah, we took a break so we could enjoy life for a while.

Mark Munger

Did that make a big difference for you? Did it…

Lisa Hodgson

Oh, yeah, it did! I mean, doing the project really helped because it kept us busy and, you know, we just knew that every weekend we had something to do. And, and, something that we wanted to do. And so, that helped a lot. And so we did, we worked on our project and kept busy doing that. And then when things started opening up again and we could go out do stuff, it was like, “Oh, ye-haw!”

Mark Munger

What was the first thing you did when things… you felt that way?

Lisa Hodgson

Well, what was the first thing we did? I don’t even remember. We probably went to a restaurant. Without a mask! Yeah, but, we probably did that… and, and, we probably went up to Minneapolis to see our granddaughter because we hadn’t seen her, and… then, yeah.

Mark Munger

Returning to life.

Lisa Hodgson

It does seem like returning to life. It, it, just seemed like during the whole darkest days of COVID, things were so mechanical, and, um, it was just, life was hard. And you had to… you just didn’t know who you could trust and who you couldn’t trust. And, you know, you don’t…. And I, because I have this lung disease, I have this chronic cough, and, you know, you don’t ever want to cough in public during…

Mark Munger

Oh, yeah, you hear coughs very differently now.

Lisa Hodgson

Yes.

Mark Munger

It’s like, “What is that!”

Lisa Hodgson

Do you have COVID?!

Mark Munger

Yes.

Lisa Hodgson

You know. Yeah, and that kind of stuff was just…

Mark Munger

Do people loOkay at you differently now?

Lisa Hodgson

I do think people loOkayed at me differently during the darkest parts of COVID, if I would cough.

Mark Munger

Yeah.

Lisa Hodgson

You know, I think that’s better now. But, yeah. Yep. It’s kind of crazy. But, when Terry got COVID, I didn’t get it. I don’t know why. But, we had given blood after that, and he had the antigens and I did not.

Mark Munger

Yeah. That’s amazing.

Lisa Hodgson

So, our social distancing worked!

Mark Munger

It’s not easy, but it worked.

Lisa Hodgson

It did. It worked, and I don’t know, and I had COVID in May, and he never got it.

Mark Munger

Really? Similarly, I had COVID and my family didn’t get it. So, yeah, I was so grateful.

Lisa Hodgson

Yeah. Well, because you don’t know how it’s going to affect people. You know? I think that’s the other really scary thing about it because, you know, people, um, I have friends who have chosen not to be vaccinated, and I respect that in them. You know, I do feel like it should be a choice. Um, for me, working in healthcare, I chose to be vaccinated. I had grandbabies. I wanted to be able to protect them as much as I can, protect myself as much as I can. So, it was important to me. However, my oldest son, Ryan, um, Ryan chose not to be vaccinated, no matter how hard I tried to convince him to be vaccinated. He was not going to have it.

Mark Munger

When did he start expressing that, sort of, opinion or view?

Lisa Hodgson

You know, because I think it became kind of political, you know, in that it was, you know, “Oh, the government is forcing people to get it.” And I think he was taking the stance that he wasn’t going to be forced to do it. And, you know, I remember even saying to him, “Ryan, you really need to go get this vaccine.” And he’s like, “Nope, not going to do it. I don’t won’t talk about it, Mom. I’m not going to get COVID” And I said, “You don’t know that. You don’t know that. It’s pretty contagious.” And I said, “You don’t know that,” you know, “people are dying from this.” And he said to me, “Not going to die.”

Mark Munger

Mmhmm.

Lisa Hodgson

Yeah. And so, it was like, Okay. And, I didn’t… I honestly didn’t want that to be my only conversation with my son the few times that I did get to see him, because he was a pretty active guy, and he liked to go and do a lot of things. And, so, yeah.

Mark Munger

Did this become a subject that was off limits?

Lisa Hodgson

I just kind of gave up on it, you know? He was 38 years old. I mean, I can’t, you know… he’s a grown man. I can’t make him do anything he doesn’t want to do, so, I was like, well, “Okay, it’s your choice.” I mean, I said before, I think people should have a choice, and that was the choice he made.

Mark Munger

But he did, he did end up getting COVID.

Lisa Hodgson

He did. He did end up getting COVID in ‘21, ‘22. When was it? ‘21. He went and got a, umm… had gone to Sturgis to the motorcycle rally. He’s a big motorcycle guy. And he… I don’t. I believe that he wasn’t feeling the best when he left, like maybe he was getting a cold. And he came home feeling worse. And I kept saying, “Ryan, I think you should get tested because I think you have COVID.”

“I don’t have COVID.”

And finally he did go to the hospital because he felt things were getting worse all along. And they tested him. “Yep, you have COVID.” But it was too late for him to have any prescription medication. And they told him, I think, to take ibuprofen and Tylenol, or something. I mean some regimented stuff and go home and rest. And as time went on, he just kept getting sicker. And he had gone to the ER because he was having problems breathing. And they said he wasn’t taking enough medication, and get his fever down, and things like that. So they sent him home again. Then, that was at Floyd Valley, and he wasn’t happy, really with that, because I think the next day, two days later, he went to Unity Point. And they were so busy there wasn’t even a place to sit. And he was so weak that he couldn’t stand. And so he laid down on the floor in the waiting room at Unity Point. And they were like, “You can’t lay here.” And he’s like, “I can’t stand.”

Mark Munger

Right.

Lisa Hodgson

And then they sent him home. And, you know again, I think back, and, you know, working in healthcare I understood. You know, they’re triaging, and they’re taking the sickest patients, and the hospitals were full, and… umm. Yeah, then he went home, again. And then a couple days later, he still wasn’t feeling good. Went back to Floyd Valley and he was transferred to Mercy in Sioux City. And, as time when on, umm, he, umm, just wasn’t getting any better. And he had a lot of anxiety while he was there. And they were short-staffed. And I felt so bad for the nurses in the ICU because they were working so hard all the time and long hours, lots of days. No time, I mean, very little time off. And they asked, and I said I could come to the hospital and be in the ICU with him. And so I did, and stayed there as much as I could.

Ryan had a hard time resting. He didn’t want to sleep. And he needed to sleep. He couldn’t sleep. He was working so hard to breathe all the time. And there were time when I was, you know, one time I was sitting there and I just had my eyes closed, and he was like, “Mom, are you tired?”

“Yup, Ryan, I am”

And he says, “Well aren’t you sleeping well at night?”

He was so worried about me. And so I said, “I sleep fine, Ryan. It’s just the end of the week, and I’m tired. It’s been a busy week, and it’s hard sitting in a hospital all day.”

And, um, he just wasn’t really ever getting much better. I didn’t really talk to him a lot because it was hard for him to talk and breathe.

Mark Munger

But he was worried about you?

Lisa Hodgson

He was worried about me, yeah. Yeah. I wasn’t getting enough sleep. Or not sleeping good.

Mark Munger

Is that him to you? I mean is that…

Lisa Hodgson

Yeah, definitely.

Mark Munger

what you would expect?

Lisa Hodgson

Yeah.

Mark Munger

His thoughts would be for you?

Lisa Hodgson

Yes. No, he was. So, then, one night about two in the morning we got a call from the hospital and we got to talk to him very briefly. They were going to put him on a vent.

Mark Munger

When they call, so they put him on the phone to, just thinking this may be?

Lisa Hodgson

Yep.

Mark Munger

Was he able to say anything?

Lisa Hodgson

“I love you guys.” Yeah. And then as days went on, a couple days went on, his organs shut down. And then, we had to make the decision to take him off the vent.

Mark Munger: You had to decide? That’s a horrible thing to happen.

Lisa Hodgson: It was. It was very hard. Before we did that, we had… a couple of his really good friends came up to the hospital so they could say their goodbyes.

Mark Munger: They were able to go say goodbye?

Lisa Hodgson: Yeah, they let them into the ICU. Yeah. It was pretty hard. Pretty hard to watch grown men cry.

Mark Munger: I can’t even imagine.

Lisa Hodgson: Yeah, it was tough. My brother lives in Sioux City, and Ryan and him were always very close from the time Ryan was little, and they would go hunting together. As a matter of fact, it was my brother who first let Ryan drive a snowmobile when he was five-years-old.

Mark Munger: He made him wait that long?

Lisa Hodgson: I know, I can't believe you let me wait that long. Really? Yeah, and so they were really close, they would hunt and fish together…(Lisa’s microphone stops working).

Mark Munger  

I'm gonna just… can you just clip this

Lisa Hodgson  

and they would go hunting and fishing together. They were good buddies. So it was really hard on my brother

Mark Munger 

Those are such bonding experiences. They must have really loved each other.

Lisa Hodgson  

Yeah, they did.

Mark Munger  

And that was that was what... he sounds like, he's outdoorsy,

Lisa Hodgson  

He was outdoorsy. He hunting, fishing, ice fishing, an avid snowmobiler and not just like, you know, I'm gonna ride the snowmobile around here in the fields. It was like I'm going out to the snowy mountains. And I'm going to ride big, the big mountains. Oh, yeah. And then he had a helmet cam. And so he'd make videos, and then he come home, and he's like “Mom, go watch this video!” And it's like, almost like straight up. And he's like, “They call this one the widowmaker.” And it’s like, “Ryan, I don't want to watch you do this!”

And it was all good, because it was a good bonding experience for Ryan with all his friends, because they have great snowmobile stories.

Mark Munger 

Do you still have those recordings? Have you ever gone back to loOkay at those recordings?

Lisa Hodgson  

Oh, heck yeah.Yeah, we have them. All his videos that he made.

Mark Munger  

Yeah.

Lisa Hodgson  

Yeah. It's good. Yeah. Yeah. And he was, I mean, he had a bright orange helmet with a blue mohawk on it. And we still have it, but it's actually going to go to one of Ryan's friends who owns Ryan's, I think, his very first snowmobile. He owns it. Yeah. He has it up on a shelf in his, in his um, I don't know what you want to… it's not really just a shed. It's like a big shed! But he has it up on a shelf. And so, yeah, the helmet’s gonna go there. Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Munger  

Sounds like his friends… like the relationships he built must have been very strong.

Lisa Hodgson

They were. They were. Ryan was an avid Kansas City Chiefs fan, and his friend Cory and him would get together. I think Cory moved back to LeMars about five years ago, so, I think, every Sunday they would watch the Chiefs together for five years. Yeah.

Mark Munger

That’s pretty fun.

Lisa Hodgson

It is pretty fun. But. Or they’d go to games.

Mark Munger

He really took after you guys. I mean, like, motorcycling. Your connection with other people seems to be very strong and valuable in your lives.

Lisa Hodgson

Yeah, definitely. He left a big hole, you know? He was a big guy. He was six-seven. And he worked hard and played hard and loved hard. And made some really good memories of a lot of really good people.

Mark Munger

Yeah. Now life, I mean, life for you is so dramatically different after COVID.

Lisa Hodgson

Very.

Mark Munger

What is, what is now your typical day?

Lisa Hodgson

Um. Kind of like… both still going to work. We haven’t retired yet, but we’re thinking about it. And, um, of course we had… Ryan owned a house in LeMars and a lot of toys. And so we had to clean out his house. Now we’re landlords.

Mark Munger

You still have the house?

Lisa Hodgson

We still have the house, yeah. We’re landlords now. We’re renting it out only because Ryan had this huge garage, which we need because we don’t know what we’re going to do with all of his toys. And so, it’s a process, you know? And we did sell his snowmobile last winter, already, just because we knew it was something we would never use. It was a mountain sled. And so we did sell that right away. It was hard.

Mark Munger

I can’t even imagine. It feels like a person becomes part of those things. So to let that go…

Lisa Hodgson

Yeah, it was hard. Yeah, so now, now we ride his Harley.

Mark Munger

Oh, really?

Lisa Hodgson

Yeah. And our motorcycle sits in the shed.

Mark Munger

The sound of that Harley must have a special meaning to you?

Lisa Hodgson

Yeah. So it’s been fun to take it. We had a big memorial ride for Ryan in September. One year from the day of his death. And, yeah, I think we had sixty people. Forty motorcycles. And cars. Forty motorcycles and cars, too. There was a lot of people there. And we did a big motorcycle ride all down through the Loess Hills. And it’s going to be an annual event.

Mark Munger

Oh, really?

Lisa Hodgson

Yep. And, Ryan wore size fifteen shoes. So we took his boots, his motorcycle boots, to the event. And, people, the whole idea was to fill the boot with money. And then the money went to St. Jude's Children's Hospital.

Mark Munger

Oh, that’s beautiful.

Lisa Hodgson

Yeah. And then if you put money in the boot, you could sign the boot. So now we have these boots that have signatures all over them, because what are you gonna do with somebody’s size fifteen boots.

Mark Munger  

Those are some big dogs!

Lisa Hodgson  

They are big. And, yeah. And so that, it's going to be an annual event now and moving forward.

Mark Munger

In September?

Lisa Hodgson

I think that's what they're going to do. One of his friends does it. We don't even do it. One of his friends is doing it. So. Yeah,

Mark Munger

You’ll be there?

Lisa Hodgson

Oh, absolutely. Hopefully, we're riding motorcycle for many years yet. But, but yeah, so it was fun because we had Ryan's bike there. And, you know, it's, it, it's been customized. And so his friends knew right away that that was, you know, people that knew him knew that that was his bike and…

Mark Munger  

Did he also do that kind of customization? Was he part of… was that, like…

Lisa Hodgson 

Well, Ryan. Ryan went to school for auto body repair, ironically. And no, I think he pretty much paid somebody to do, do that part. But what he did customize, is he was building and painting his own RC car body bodies.

Mark Munger

Oh, really?

Lisa Hodgson

Yeah. Yeah. So he had, he had quite a few RC cars, because it was doing RC car racing. And so after, after his death Ryan had two kids that would race down at Bad Fast Hobbies in Sioux City that he was pretty fond of. And so we gave each little, each one of those boys one of his RC cars as memory. And we told them, “Now this isn't to be, like, left on a shelf. This is to be played with and raced, because that's what Ryan would have done with it. And we want you to do that, too.” Yeah, yep. And so now, Bad Fast Hobbies is going to do a memorial race, in March, I think, for Ryan. So, yeah, he touched a lot of hearts.

Mark Munger: Clearly.

Lisa Hodgson

Yeah, so he lives on. But yeah, so life is different for us. No, no, Ryan and I had a Tuesday night date thing. So we would go to dinner on Tuesday nights. We did that for several years and, and that was just our time to connect and… so yeah, no Tuesday night dates. I'm glad we did it though. Yeah.

Mark Munger

Yeah.

Lisa Hodgson

Yeah. Almost always had to go have hot wings somewhere. But that was his thing. It was like,I think he finally got like, like, burned out going to Buffalo Wild Wings. After a while then, he's like, “Let's go somewhere else.” Like, “Oh, Okay.”

Mark Munger

If you want?

Lisa Hodgson

Then there was a lot of times where it was like Christmas, you know, it'd be like, “Okay, we're gonna go out to eat and then, Mom, you got to help me Christmas shop.” So we would go Christmas shopping, Christmas gift shopping with him. But, yeah, and I don't know now. I mean, we, we go to work. And we come home, and we're still working on our house because that was our COVID project. And we didn't quite get it done. Because when summer came, we had to play. And, but we do go back, we're back out eating with, going out to eat with our friends. And going to more social events and community events, again, and things like that we enjoy, so…

Mark Munger

Do you feel changed?

Lisa Hodgson

I do. Definitely feel changed. Empty. But, but I do feel more, I'm more passionate about supporting entities in the community of LeMars. You know, we went to the hospital fundraiser this fall, and we just went to an event at the Legion last weekend, and I feel more passionate about supporting those things. So you know, and helping them them survive. I still think it's going to be very hard for a lot of businesses, and I know a lot of businesses closed and didn't make it through COVID. And it's very unfortunate. And I feel like it's important to, to do our part to help the community, you know, and, and service groups in the community and things like that that really support a lot of a lot of need in our communities. So I definitely, I always thought it was important before, but now I'm just a little bit more passionate about it.

Mark Munger  

You have a tremendous hear. I appreciate your taking the time to talk to me. Thank you so much.

Lisa Hodgson

You're welcome.

Mark Munger

It was not easy for you. I really appreciate it. So yeah. Thank you.

Lisa Hodgson  

You're welcome.

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