My Father

It seems like I’ve had a hard time writing about my father, my personal history that section is lacking. My father holds a special place in my heart. While growing up I was always trying to please him and have his attention, a lot like M does with G.

Anything he was interested in: books, plants, stars, science, Underdog, Popeye, Muppets, Dune, songs he sang anything doing with my dad I loved too. I took every opportunity to spend time with him, even if it meant waking up at 5:30 am and doing irrigation, or 2:00 am to watch shooting stars. I memorized A Poor Way Faring Man of Grief as a teenager, knowing that was my dad’s favorite hymn.

I have wonderful memories of eating licorice together, especially the black kind (that is my dad’s favorite) on camping trips, and feeling disappointed with myself when I couldn’t get myself to eat the raw sardines. Getting baptized was a special event I remember my father talking to me, practicing with me and helping me understand the importance of being a member of the Church and having my sins cleaned. He is a wonderful example of service, he would always take care of his widowed mother-in-law with whatever she needed.

Work is important to both of my parents, my father is always in the yard and garden working, right now the latest project is the cabin. When we were younger the yard and orchard were the big projects, I think the original idea was for us kids to work hard, but my dad did most of the pruning, tilling, planting, we might help with the picking and irrigation at times, but he did most of the work outside.

For a long time I actually didn’t know what my dad did for his profession. He is interested in so many things, I thought he worked with plants, then I asked my mom what he did and she said he was a doctor, but that confused me he didn’t seem like the doctors I had met, he was my dad. If you meet him you’d think he was a scientist, inventor, botanist, plant geneticist, astronomer, politician, or missionary. I still feel like my dad is so smart and knows about everything, and if I had a question about anything he’d probably have an answer.

My dad is a fountain of knowledge. I remember randomly he’d come in my room and share some insight of wisdom like, “the only security in life is God.” Or “sometimes our greatest strengths can be our greatest weaknesses” (I think he was referring to my over active imagination). He is very protective of his wife, children and grandchildren. Very generous, very thoughtful, he and my mom will often hire people who need help always having many projects going on at once. The way they spent money was never indulgent, money was spent on family vacations, helping others, ideas to help their children, very self-sacrificing parents.

My favorite memories are Narnia memories while growing up he probably read the whole Narnia series 5-6 times through, starting when I was in Kindergarten in Oklahoma, also he would quote us poems he had memorized like “the Raven” , stories from The Hobbit and songs from the 3Ds and cowboy songs. I remember the singing, my dad’s strong voice lulling me to sleep or entertaining us in the car with tales of the everglades, of frogs, most songs with a kind of lesson.

There has always been service in the church, every calling taken seriously and fulfilled completely. Father’s blessings, healing blessings, Family Home Evening, Sunday sharing of spiritual thoughts and lessons. Personal Priesthood Interviews (PPI’s) at least once a month especially when I was a teenager. When I was sixteen my dad took me on a date, we went out to eat at Olive Garden and saw a movie at the foreign films, I was in heaven having that one on one special memory time with my dad.

When I was eighteen I got to go on a business trip with him to San Diego where we got to go to Catalina, see the San Diego temple, walk by the beach hang out with some of his friends and go out to eat, it was such a wonderful memory I’ll never forget and so nice to have before I left home.

Family vacations, example, insightful, wise, gardening, studying, continually learning and sharing, generous and wonderful, my father.

My growing up family memories

Rubbing backs, telling stories, talking about boys, life, school together
A taking apart the vacuum, baffling me with ninento
J looking in the mirror and wandering the house

Watching Anne of Green Gables tying quilts
Boys making fun of the movie but still watching the whole thing
Rs falling from the stairs stopping my heart

Dad laying on his back playing monster while we run past
Mom reading Cheaper by the Dozen, matching socks during movies
Mom always there in the morning, early making breakfast seeing us off

After school snacks, carrots in our lunches, apples in our lockers
Dad in the yard, the garden, the orchard, reading Narnia to us
Scripture study, sitting on the vents tenting the blanket over to keep warm

Ru and M often sharing a room, bunk bed falling, conspiring together
Yelling for J when I was scared, wrestling, play-fighting a lot
M doing her art, flashcards, sewing, playing with dolls

Ra in her hippo bathing suit, running the home seeing right and wrong
Ru serving, cleaning, making up songs, drawing pictures, cooking
A studying my science with me, taking our family to the Bean museum

Mom peeling oranges, books read to us, everyone singing a different tune on trips
Yellowstone, Canada, Washington D.C., California, back East
Setting up the tent trailer, Dad pointing out plants, hiking, seeing history

Family home evenings laying under the piano, behind the couch cushions
Gun shooting, exotic food, Bean museum, picnics up the canyon
Words of wisdom, prayers, musical performances, poems and lessons

Visiting grandparents every week, serving in the yard, washing windows
Writing, poetry, hair brushing, waterbed, view of the temple at Grandma V’s
Cousins, Little Bunny Foo Foo, stories and laughs at Grandma and Grandpa D’s

Dinner and lounging on the deck, telescoping the stars, working in the yard
Irrigation turn, waking up early helping the water flow to the plants, picking apples
Stirring, setting the table, vacuuming making things look nice, sharing with others

Christmas time looking forward to our Palestinian dinner, lights at Temple square
Singing German at the tabernacle, gathering and sharing with family and friends
Piles set out for us in the living room, Tree lights and ornaments and grandparents

Memories of happiness, safety, warning, gospel lived and taught
Importance of family togetherness, marriage, children, work and education
Gratitude for siblings, parents, family

Lasting days

Memorable days time passing like a needle through the day
My daughter in a play, wearing my old high school formal
My husband so vulnerable under anesthetic, surgery on a pinkie finger
My son endeared to me, struggling to know how to deal with boiling emotions
My baby clinging to me trying to find security loving her walks

I wonder how to make my home peaceful, how to deal with the teasing siblings
How to manage time so the important things are taught and sought after
How to care for the health and well-being of the family
Crying over others sadness and struggles feeling so blessed and grateful for what we have
The sunshine comes often at the end of the clouded days, giving life

My family's house

The home I lived in for 10 years and my parents still lived in for another 10 years is for sale. I cried the other day when I passed it. It needs to be a home used and loved and filled with family. Why does it bother me so much I ask myself? Then I realize I have so many, many memories, and it was a home hand built and put together by my parents. I remember while we lived in the rental house for a year the architect coming all the time changing this or that adding a greenhouse, putting the laundry room upstairs, raising the ceilings.

I remember the summer before we moved in going over with my parents and doing our part to help in the building, even if it was sweeping up the sawdust or helping to hammer in a nail. Going over to check on the house every week and seeing the new changes and development and my mom being so concerned because the railing wasn’t up yet in the living room or on the stairs. Of course that is also the time my little sister was running through the open walls and a nail completely cut her knee and she had to have stitches and has a battle scar from the experience.

I remember moving in soon as the upstairs was done, and it did have everything; a family room, living room, laundry three bedrooms, kitchen and two bathrooms. I shared a queen size bed with my three sisters. It was o.k., but it wore on me I went to my parents in tears, I wasn’t sleeping and I hated being kicked during the night and I felt too mature for my silly little sisters. I proposed that I sleep in the basement. Anything had to be better then sharing a bed. There were spiders, open unfinished walls, cement floors and big black windows. My mom helped me put a blanket over the window and I had a twin size bed, a little dresser and put a blanket on the floor and I lived like that for six months.

I would go out in the yard with my dad and take a turn swirling the seeds around for a clover yard, apparently that would help the lawn be thick and prepare the ground for the lawn. I think we had a clover yard for a year or two before he put down grass seed. My dad loved plants and boy did he plant; There was the large tree in the front, the bushes, ground cover, the orchids, the peach tree, walnut trees, the grapevines that completely cover the chain link fence in front, the aspen grove and the pussywillow tree, the rubarb plants, the blackberry and raspberry bushes, the two hills with a variety of plants and flowers. The 150 apple trees behind the house and the vegetable garden he planted on the side of the house and the plants he put between the apple trees when they were still young.

I remember hearing my parents discuss the playset and surprising us with it. A strong sturdy metal set we would play on for hours. We would be pirates avoiding the sharks in the grassy waters, we’d talk, swing, slide. Even as a teenager and coming home for a break from collage I would swing while the sun was setting on one side, the mountains and trees on the other. We would play volleyball with other teenagers as we grew up in the yard in front. In the back there was a little hill and a slight dip that I hated mowing, but was so fun to run down that hill or have a little hill to sled on. When it rained a lot or when the snow melted we’d have almost a little pond to splash or float things on.

My mom put up curtains and blinds, pictures, carpet for each room. We had a large bulletin board and white board where our art work would be displayed, family councils recorded, job assignments put. Then of course there was the deck that was added on to the back and a shed built underneath it. I was paid $50.00 one year for girls camp to stain the whole deck. We had so many Sunday dinners there. I would curl up in my warm flannel blanket and sit on the lawn chair during the thunderstorms, smelling the musk and watching the storm clouds and admire my wonderful mountains.

There was the green house, I remember helping my dad to lay bricks on the earth for flooring, there were hand built shelves for the weird and exotic plants, ferns and flowers my dad had, even a full lemon tree was planted, avacado plants too. There was a fan and it was always warm even in the winter. I often would go mist all the plants as one of my favorite chores. It also shared as a weight room when my brother got into highschool basketball.

Our cherry small grand piano sat in the livingroom next to the bay window that viewed Timpanogas mountain. There I cheated my mom of her kitchen help by luring myself away with songs on the piano, how could my mother deny the music I wished to practice? How many concerts for grandparents and guests did my siblings and I perform there in that room? I helped put up the wall paper for one of my rooms, I’d change from sharing a room to having my own room off and on. There was the large storage room with shelves installed just for food storage.

Of course there was the garage, hardly ever used for a garage no matter how many times our mom had family cleaning there, if it wasn’t crowded with stuff, it was crowded with apples to store, sale, or give away. So many wonderful memories and so many associations. Yet, where my parents are is where their family home is. It was a split level home and a whole flight of stairs to get to the kitchen, even to get to the front door there were several porch steps (that I hated cleaning off in the winter). It got harder and harder on my grandparents and then on my mother to go up those stairs. It made perfect sense when they sold it and moved into my grandmothers house, also a home my mother help build and made with love and purpose. I hope a family will buy it and love and appreciate it enjoying similar memories to mine. I have my memories, and maybe I’ll go by and put a few pictures to go with these words.