A Lesson Learned (But Not Completely)

The memories of my dad being sick often are reminders of the fact, that I still have not come to terms with his passing.

I wish I could say, that eventually I will embrace the reality of his death and grasp the religious faith that leads me through so many difficult times, but it doesn't ever seem to ease the loss I feel.

I actually makes sense, because I still sense the loss of my grandfather, who died suddenly in his late 40's in 1956.

Although I was only a bit older than three years old, I remember him vividly.

You just forget the sound of their voice, or at least you think you do. Both have talked to me in dreams during the past 20 years, and each time I recognized their voice immediately. Maybe it was my musical background or something, but I've always been able to recognize the voices of old friends--or at least most of them. Exceptions are those, whose medical conditions altered the sound somehow.

It's interesting how old photographs say so much to me. The first one is of me and my mom in the late fall before my father's passing in February. I would travel to be with my dad on weekends. They spent time on the ranch, a favorite place. There was a connection we had with the land in a place, where my father and I spent so much time together.

But during those visits, my dad was just like he always was. He had a list of things that bothered him: specific chores that had to be done, nailing down the tin on a roof of a shed, finding various things he truly loved like the sleigh bells he once had hanging in the shed. Dad wanted those placed in the house, where in the next five to ten years someone stole them. I did the list of errands.

That fall of 1990 was a horrible year. Dad had been sick all summer. In late September, he called me to ask me if I couldn't please come and help him with some projects he was finishing.

I was under contract at Rigby High, and to make matters worse, I had a German Exchange at the time.

It was yet another example how those month-long experiences--one happening in the fall and the other int he early summer--were an horrible drain on my family, both emotionally and financially.

Within a week, I lost a transmission in our Ford Taurus, which only had 80,000 original miles. That was not much considering how we took care of our cars. I asked dad if there was anything I could use to get to work, while I had the transmission repaired. He didn't, and he seemed out of character. He had much on his mind, that he didn't tell me about in that phone call.

We bought the blue Chevrolet van, a Lumina, which basically is no longer something you see on the road.

The good news is that the engine and transmission had over 250,000 miles on it, before we sold it to someone else. Doors were the problem. We fixed the passenger and driver's doors at least 20 times each, the cost of a single repair was $100. We would wait for the last minute.

During Christmas shopping one year, the sliding door and front doors were out of commission. We actually had to arrange the packages, so that we could crawl through the hatchback at the rear. I hated that car.

But it was the one I purchase when my father was so sick. We drove every weekend to be with my father. In six months, I had almost 40,000 miles on that car, miles I never regret. It was an incredible blessing for us to spend as much time with my father as possible.

When I see this pictures of our family farm, it reminds me of that time.

Dad always took care of the ranch. He had reached a time, when he knew his cancer had returned. He just didn't tell us until the last minute. We figured there was no rush to repair it, since it would break again within weeks.

Like I said, it was a bad year.

I went deer hunting with my dad that fall. My son Cles went too, and that's when I noticed something was wrong. Dad was in extreme pain on the dirt roads on the farm. Every bump was something that drained him physically. He didn't get out of the truck, and even shooting his rifle hurt him.

He went in for surgery late that fall, and a doctor in Brigham City told us the news. In spite of any hope we had, the surgeon assured me there was only a short time left. His prognosis was correct, almost to the day. Truth is realizing that what they say about the messenger is true. I still hate that surgeon.

It's part of the irrational list of things you do, when you try to cope with tragedy.

Things are in constant change. The yards, in which my dad took so much pride, now are a collection of fallen trees that died in the last 20 years. Only a few remain. The lawns no longer appear as they once did. Fences are down.
The tin I secured during those weekends for my dad still remains intact, but other sections are no gone--tossed away by wind and storm. The roof buckled at some point.

Twenty years passed. In the fall of 2011, my mother had a massive stroke.

She speaks to us. She tells stories occasionally about life on the ranch, about life during those magical years, about chores and doing things at home and on the farm.

What remains is an incredible legacy. The love my mother has for my father is still evident in the sparkle in her eyes. He visits her in her dreams now and beckons her to join him.

They taught us to cherish our spouse, our soul mate. They taught us how to work, how to be honest, how to remember the importance of living according to the name we inherited from honorable and upright people.

LIke those dark days in 1990 and 1991, when we spent time with my father, we try to be as much with my mother as possible, but things change.

I now am two years older than my father, when he passed. My cancer affected me physically, limiting my ability to spend time at the hospital like I once did. It was a time, when we all slept in chairs in my father's hospital room, a time, when we were all in our 30's, a time, when our children were all at home. Grandchildren now live all across the country.

But our thoughts are always with our parents, and our prayers are with my mom at this difficult time.

So at this point in life, I find myself in a moment, where I find that I not only learn from lessons, but I also make some of the same mistakes.

I bought a horrible Ford and turned to two terrible General Motors cars. I spent a great deal of time with my father, and wished I could have spent more meaningful moments. I now realize that things are the same regarding my mother, except for the fact that I dropped in for a visit days before her massive stroke. She and two of my aunts were there. I was an evening I will always remember.