Morris Giddings Memorial Assistance

Hi, everyone. My name is Misti and I am Morris ("Moe") Giddings's youngest daughter. My family and I wanted to start a GoFundMe in the wake of my father's passing. I'm going to tell you about my dad, about his passing, and why we are raising money.

ABOUT MY DAD

Many described Moe as kind, witty, talented, and generous but “legendary” was the most descriptive word that captured who he was. Always first to offer words of encouragement or condolences, he would have given the shirt off his back to anyone in need. And then he would have offered his hat to go along with it, just in case. (Just maybe not his Rusty Wallace hat; he put his truck in reverse on US-131 just to retrieve it when it blew out of the window one summer.)

Moe was born August 12, 1953 in Vicksburg, MI to parents Morris and Helen (Pease) Giddings. He graduated from Vicksburg High School in 1971, where he met the love of his life, Deborah Harris. Moe and Deb married on August 17, 1974 and later became the proud parents of three daughters. Family was everything to him and he was everything to them.

For 26 years, he was an accomplished pipefitter for the James River Paper Corporation in Parchment, MI where he also served as Union President of the UA Local 357 Plumbers/Pipefitter Union. The paper mill closed in 2000 and, wanting to try something exciting and new, he and Deb became the owners of a Vicksburg sports bar aptly named The Sports Page. Moe was an exceptional bartender and an even better cook.

His culinary prowess lead him to creating a recipe that became famous among anyone who knew him: his Kansas City-style, sneaky heat barbecue sauce he called ZydecoMo’s Rajun Cajun Bayou-B-Q Sauce. This sauce was highly requested by friends and family, a major hit at his restaurant, and award-winning in the community. Moe and his sauce took 1st place in Kalamazoo’s RibFest in August of 2000.

Moe’s talent and sharp-witted sense of humor wasn’t the only impact made on people’s lives. His compassion and selflessness lead him to serve as a CPR and First Aid instructor for several years and, in May of 2016, resulted in him receiving a Life Saving Award from the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety. The award was presented to him for his exceptional and professional efforts which resulted in the preservation of life, when he administered CPR to a friend who collapsed at the VFW.

Moe’s legacy, and the thing (other than his family) that he was most proud of, was founding the Red Arrow Riders in 2012, a group that honors veterans and current service-people through the sport of motorcycling. He served as President for the better part of a decade until he had to step down due to health reasons. The Red Arrow Riders have raised over $15,000 for charitable causes such as Wheeled Warrior, Talons Out Honor Flight, Section Collection, and Veteran Service Dog Org. They have also donated to several local veteran families in times of need (such as funeral costs, groceries, Christmas gifts, cancer treatment costs, etc.)

Hobbies that he enjoyed throughout his life included camping at Miles Cove Campground, singing and playing accordion in several bluegrass bands, hunting, riding his Harley Davidson, dominating anyone in Trivial Pursuit, playing blackjack in Las Vegas, riding the fastest and tallest rollercoasters, watching Nascar, and taking a leisurely lap or twelve around Muskrat Lake on his pontoon.

ABOUT HIS PASSING

Sometime in 2015, my dad was diagnosed with Stage 4 COPD. The doctor, at that time, said he had between 1 and 5 years left. But that was 8 years ago!

In mid-2022, Dad was diagnosed with Stage 3 kidney failure and severe anemia. None of the doctors could figure out why he was so anemic, so he spent the last 9 months in and out of doctors and hospitals trying to figure it out. He had blood transfusions and iron infusions and a bone marrow biopsy and a litany of medications and a whole menagerie of different doctors and specialists that he had to see.

In early May, he went to a doctor appointment to have an ultrasound done on his arm because he suspected he had a blood clot. They discovered that he, indeed, had blood clots and sent him to the ER. During this time, they found that the clot was deep (DVT, deep vein thrombosis). They also found a superficial one in his leg and a clot in his lung. His hemoglobin levels were still below 7, so they continued to give him blood transfusions to try and raise that level to a normal level. They found blood in his stool and did a colonoscopy. While performing the colonoscopy, they removed a 10mm polyp. They thought perhaps this was contributing to his anemia and they released him from the hospital on May 11th. They never said, "His hemoglobin levels are normal, he can go home" or "We found and fixed the source of his internal bleed, so he can go home". But for whatever reason, they released him to go home. I took him to a radiology appointment on May 12th for a CT scan on his abdomen to check for other sources of the bleed.

May 12th was what I call My Last Good Day with my dad. I took him to his appointment and he was in a great mood, he was cracking jokes like his old self, we were talking about music and movies, the appointment was WAY faster than expected, and we had a really nice afternoon. Feeling great and being in a great mood, he said he was even planning on going to Bike Night (something his motorcycle club hosts on Friday nights).

Even though the day was so wonderful, I told my family that night, "Something in my gut tells me that today will be my last good memory of my dad, I'm not sure why." I had a similar intuitive feeling in my gut when my mother-in-law passed away in 2021.

He started not feeling well over the weekend and on Monday, May 15th, he called 911. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't walk, and his blood pressure was something like 84/44. Paramedics rushed him to the hospital and while he was there, they hit him and my mom with the news: The CT scan showed that he had aggressive pancreatic cancer that had spread into his liver.

Never, in a million years, did anyone expect something like pancreatic and/or liver cancer to be the thing that was going to end his life. We all expected some form of pulmonary complications, never cancer in those other organs.

He stayed in the hospital and declined rapidly. Each day I'd come up to visit, he'd be 2x worse than the day before. Ultimately, we were told that he would not survive this and all procedures and biopsies and scopes were canceled. He was moved to hospice on Wednesday afternoon. My sister, Amy, flew in from AZ and while my other sister, Amanda, was going to pick her up from the airport, the hospice nurse told my mom and me that my dad just had hours left. Amy made it in time to see him and say goodbye.

My dad passed away at 5:50am on Friday, May 19th.

WHY WE ARE RAISING FUNDS

Although we knew the day would be coming, and although there were measures in place (like life insurance, for example) - his passing was still unexpected and there are still many financial things to take care of in his wake. We are just putting this out there in hopes that we can just raise something to help ease the burden that is on my mother, as she navigates her new life as a widow.

My dad had been seeing doctors and specialists and having tests and surgeries and biopsies and scopes and bloodwork performed for the past year and his medical bills are astronomical. My parents' house also experienced a lot of damage in the last year (a pipe burst on New Year's Eve and flooded the entire upstairs bathroom and downstairs hallway, they had to get a new roof) and there is still quite a bit owed on it. We also want to assist with any of the costs of his cremation and arrangements, if possible.

We are just hoping to do what we can to assist and make things as easy as possible. My mom works hard and lost her best friend. They would have been celebrating my dad's 70th birthday and my parents' 49th wedding anniversary in August of 2023. He was her whole world.

If you have anything to spare, or if you can share this fundraiser, that would mean the world to us all!

Thank you for taking the time to read this about my dad. If you knew him, you loved him. And if you didn't know him, you missed out on knowing an amazing person. He was incredible. He'd probably be livid that I was posting this because he never asked for anything and worked hard for everything he had. But I also know that there's no shame in asking for help, so I am going out on a limb and seeing what we're able to do.

Thank you again!