For Dad

Recently I began feeling anxious to see my family. I had not seen all of them together since Christmas, and had not seen any of them since the beginning of March, and I missed them. I have been adventurous in taking off to some exotic location like Spain or Washington, D. C., or Ann Arbor, Michigan, every couple years, but as fun as it is to live somewhere new and start fresh in a place where I know no one, what I always miss the most is having my family close by. One particular Sunday several weeks ago, about the time I bought my plane ticket to travel out to Utah when my parents and brother and sister would all be out there at once, I began feeling especially nostalgic. Thinking about just how much my family means to me, I pulled out several sheets of yellow notepaper that I have kept in a safe place for nearly eight years, and read what was written on those sheets of paper for the first time in quite awhile.

I am not sure if my dad remembers writing that letter, or if he knows how much it means to me. That stack of yellow paper, filled with my dad’s handwritten memories of my own childhood and his advice to his first child to leave home for college, is one of my most important possessions and is one of the first things I would take with me in an emergency if I knew I would lose most everything else. It was reading through this letter, and knowing that Father’s Day and my dad’s birthday were coming up and that I didn’t know what to give him, that I first thought of writing this blog entry. Now, several versions later, I have finally decided that I will never be completely satisfied with the final product and have decided to go ahead and post it. It no longer matters what other people think about this blog entry because it is not for those other people. This post is for my dad, and it is written to my dad.

Dad,

Some of my favorite memories of the time I have spent with you are of those times when it was just you and I together. I began writing down some of those memories, and I found that the more I wrote the more I remembered.

One of my first memories is from Chicago. Do you remember when we took a family vacation back there? I was fifteen, I think. You and mom had so many stories, and you asked if Eric and I remembered this, or that, and of course you knew we didn’t because we were so young when we lived there. Then at one point during the vacation, you talked about taking me to work one day, riding the train downtown, and I said, “I remember that!” This seemed to surprise you, and I guess it surprised me a little too. I couldn’t remember much, and what I did remember was fuzzy. I remembered a train and I remembered a cubicle in an office building and coloring with colored pencils or pens. And this memory was genuine, not one of those memories pieced together from photographs and stories, because before that day thirteen years later I don’t think you had ever told me that you took me in to your office, and even if you did you certainly never told me that we rode the train. But I remember the train.

I remember daddy-daughter dates. I remember watching The Bear in the theater—that must have been one of the earlier ones. And I also remember what may have been our last “official” daddy-daughter date. Mom and the other kids were going to a baseball game, I think, and she dropped me off to meet you. We went to California Pizza Kitchen, and I’ll bet if I went back to that same restaurant I could probably pick out the very booth we sat in. We ordered a southwestern chicken pizza and a Caesar salad and split them, and then for dessert we split a slice of key lime pie. I had never had key lime pie before, and I was a little dubious, but it was delicious. I remember going home afterwards. It must have been wintertime or early spring, because it was dark but not terribly late, and we sat down in the family room, and you flipped channels and Logan’s Run was playing on some channel, and we stayed there and I watched the whole thing curled up beside you on the couch.

I remember taking walks with you. You and mom always took walks in the evenings, but sometimes on a Saturday or Sunday morning you would take Molly or Babe or Logan (or Babe and Logan) on a walk around the block, and sometimes you would ask if I wanted to come. I would throw on a pair of jeans and sneakers and join you, one-on-one. And the first few years that I lived in Utah I would also sometimes accompany you on walks in Bountiful, when you were there on business and had neither mom nor the dogs to join you. I remember walking past your old elementary school and hearing your memories of growing up. And I loved the chance to talk with you, to tell you what was going on in my life, to share our thoughts about life and family and the gospel. I am not around as much anymore, either in California or Utah, but as rare as they are nowadays, I still look forward to these walks with you.

I remember that once you came down to Provo instead of me coming up to Bountiful, during my freshman year. We walked through the University Mall, which had not yet undergone remodeling and desperately needed to be updated. And then we drove to the other end of town, to see the new mall for comparison, though at the time Dillard’s was the only part that was open. We went to Wendy’s afterwards, I think, and ate and talked, and I told you about my thoughts about my major, and you said I ought to think about taking another math class. I didn’t want to listen to you, to be perfectly honest, but once you said that, the thought was in my head and bounced around there for awhile and I realized I kind of missed math, signed myself up for a calculus class, and seven years later am working on a PhD in mathematics education.

I remember skiing at Alta with you, when I was taking a drawing class, and looking at the rocks against the snow, and telling you how much I wanted to draw those rocks. I remember going skiing at Deer Valley and looking at the massive houses that the ski lift passes over, and agreeing that for being the most expensive resort in the area, it wasn’t any more fun than the less expensive places. I remember skiing at Snowbasin and ending the day early when I was slammed from behind by a rogue snowboarder, and I remember that you came to me rather than following your instincts to go after the snowboarder who had hurt your daughter and continued on his way without a backward glance.

I remember talking pictures of Sean, curled up in his sleeping bag, on our trip to Yosemite. This is not strictly a one-on-one memory, of course, but with Sean’s level of consciousness that early in the morning, it may as well have been :). I also remember how we hiked most of the hike up Half Dome together, while Sean raced ahead, stopping to rest only long enough for us to catch up, and how you and Sean managed to persuade me to make the final ascent when I became terrified at the idea of walking almost straight up the rock with nothing but a rope to hold to to keep me from falling.

I remember reading with you on Sundays, on the couch in the living room or, when weather permitted, on the bench under the arbor outside. I remember reading The Chronicles of Narnia, and the Tennis Shoes series, and The Great Brain, and Where the Red Fern Grows with its happy-sad ending.

I remember when I had tickets to the brand new Getty museum, but no one to go with. I thought I would go by myself, and I got directions from you, but I was not familiar with the Los Angeles freeways and I got lost and didn’t make it there. We went over the directions again and figured out what I had done wrong, and you decided to take a couple hours off of work one day to meet me there so that we could attend the museum together. We thought the architecture was the best part of the museum, but we also wandered through the medieval art displays, and commented on how the artists depicted biblical stories. It meant a lot to me that you came with me that day.

I remember one summer when I was working through a temp agency and had a one or two day data entry job in your parking garage. We met for lunch, and ate our sack lunches in plaza outdoors, and then you took me on a short walk through downtown LA. Another time I remember meeting you at the Los Angeles Public Library, which I had visited only once on a school field trip years before. I can’t remember why I met you there, except perhaps that it was summer and I had free time and a massive, air-conditioned library seems an excellent way to spend an unscheduled summer day.

I remember a family reunion in Utah. I had awaken early, as usual, and I went down to the lobby to read while I waited for everyone else to wake up. While I was sitting there, in an armchair, you walked into the lobby and asked if I wanted to take a walk outside. I didn’t have shoes on, but I suddenly knew why you were there and I followed you out barefoot and we walked once around the building while you put your arm around my shoulder and told me that grandpa had passed away in the night. I didn’t cry then – the tears came later when it finally sunk in that I would not see grandpa again in this life. But this memory makes me cry now, years later. I think it is because I felt your love for grandpa and your love for me so strongly at the same time that this memory is so special to me.

Dad, you have told me so many times that friends come and go, but family will always be there. As I move from place to place and leave behind old friends and make new friends, I understand more and more how true this is, and even more than that, I am grateful for a family who will always be there, who I want to always be there. You and mom have been such wonderful examples to me, and have always been so supportive of me. I have learned and continue to learn so much from you, and I love you and always will.

July 2, 2006