My Dad

So today is a little (or a lot) depressing. May 16th is my dad's birthday; if he were still alive he would have turned 60 today. In fact, it has been twenty years now (on May 5th to be exact) since he passed away from cancer. However, I still remember like it was yesterday the last time I saw him at the hospital--I can remember the sounds and the smells. I remember the last words I heard him say before we kids left. I'm sure he knew the time was near, and he hugged us all individually. I remember him squeezing my brother and saying, "I love you son." I still cry twenty years later just thinking about it.

He was born in little old Salina, Utah, on May 16, 1948 (a country bumpkin from the start). Although he finished high school in West Jordan (go Jordan Beetdiggers!), he much preferred the small town over the city. As a child he enjoyed forms of entertainment like playing Cowboys and Indians with loaded BB guns and racing Grandpa's Dodge Charger. (And a word of advice--if you seek to avoid prosecution, don't put M-80s in the blue USPS drop boxes--just ask my dad!)

Since he had always suffered from asthma, he wasn't sent to Vietnam; instead he served a mission in Australia (where he met my mum). When he told his mission president that he had met the girl he was going to marry (mind you, he still had ten months of his mission left), he was shipped to the western side of the continent the next day. Anyhow, ten months later he was released from his mission while in Australia, and they planned the wedding, which took place not too many weeks later.

(I don't know the location, but I'm guessing it was sometime in 1969?)

They made their first home in Sandy, Utah, which my mom loved--loves the city life like me. However, when she was extremely pregnant with me (the third child), he moved her to the middle of nowhere--some place called Aurora (is that in Utah?!). We actually had a lot of fun growing up there. Did a lot of outdoor activities, had every animal under the sun, and were subject to many, many smells (feed lots, turkey farms, pig farms, etc.). Gotta love the great outdoors, right?

(Apparently he thought he was Jeff Corwin--yuck!!)

When I think of my dad, I think first of his love of family. He loved us and wasn't afraid to tell us or show us.

I also think of his love of the Gospel--he loved to share his testimony. Even towards the end when he was so sick from chemotherapy, he would often be found on his knees in prayer.

He also had a very patriotic love for our country and wanted us to understand and appreciate our freedoms.

He also had a crazy fun sense of humor. I think I inherited the fiery temper from the Aussie side, and my whacked-out sense of humor from my dad. Wouldn't he and Tom have had a great time laughing together. The two of them could clear a theater!

Mom, remember the "Spree attacks," or hopping down the boardwalks in Yellowstone? I can still recall the words to many Ray Stevens songs as well. I remember trips to Lagoon each summer. Dad and I always had to lie down after the spinny rides so we wouldn't throw up. I remember him setting off firecrackers to wake us kids up when we had spent the night in the tent--but oops, blew a large hole through the lawn chair instead. Those were the days . . .

I remember a few months before he died when he was asked to share his testimony in Stake Conference. I remember him saying that he wasn't afraid to die--he just didn't want to leave his family. He wanted to be there to send his only son on a mission and witness his three daughters be married in the temple. Those are the things I think I miss the most. He wasn't there when I knelt across the alter from my sweetheart; he wasn't there when I had my baby girl or when baby Tommy was life-lighted away in a helicopter. Those are memories I wish we could have shared together, but I know he was looking down on me from some mountainous area in Heaven.

P.S. Did you happen to notice the hair color of both my mom and dad? So where did my red hair come from, you might ask? Well, I don't know either. But Heather and Aaron used to think it was cute to tell me that I was adopted as a "Wednesday's Child."