remembering dad on memorial day 2014

For memorial day we met up with my sister Stephanie and her family to go visit my dad's grave.  We brought popcorn because it was his favorite snack.  I think he had popcorn every night. A funny story about popcorn, my dad usually had someone make him some microwave popcorn.  One evening no one else was home so he had to make his own.  He put the bag in the microwave and just pushed some buttons.  My Scott and Matt came to the house and found a 2 feet of smoke hovering from the ceiling, the microwave still cooking, a very pungent odor of burnt popcorn assaulting their noses, and my dad just sitting on the couch, chilling, watching a show.  Either he didn't notice or didn't care but it took a few days to get that smell out of the house.  Apparently he set the microwave for 30 minutes instead of 3 minutes.  

As we spent time at his grave I took note that I was totally at peace with the knowledge that he was in heaven and doing well.  

 I made sure to point out my other relatives that were rested in this cemetery as well.  I was finally able to give them proof that my grandfather not Great but regular grandfather was born in the 1800's and had 15 children.  They were impressed.

A year with out dad April 2014

Well I can officially say it has been a rough year with out my dad.  He was our rock, whenever life seemed to be overwhelming he would come up with something to make it more bearable or be their to put things into perspective.  As we went through all these firsts without him I find myself thinking about what would be different if he were here.  

I believe that Time is a healer of all wounds.  As the anniversary of his death was coming up I would find myself weepy at times.  I am not much of a cry-er but sometimes I think that one must mourn to begin the healing process.  

I was worried about how we were all going to handle this moment.  My mom asked that we wait until Sunday to do the big family thing.  (For his actual death date we went to the Blue Man group).  On Sunday my mom had a Chinese lantern which we all wrote little notes to Grandpa on.  We walked down to the park to release it up to heaven.  The weather started to get soggy but the lantern took flight.  I loved to watch the grandchildren shout their greetings to grandpa and watching with awe, certain the lantern would make it to their beloved grandpa.  At that moment I felt like we were all okay.  Yes it was sad but we have the knowledge of the Atonement, life after death and the gospel in general.  I feel at peace when I think about my dad. I know I will see him again and that he is watching over us.  Sometimes I joke when things aren't quite going the way I need them too and ask Heavenly Father if maybe he could put my dad on the task of helping me out.  We love you and miss you dad but I know that you had work to do on the other side.  I am proud of you.

The days after. .

I am so grateful I was able to be there for my dad's passing on April 4th 2013 just days after Easter.  As I stood by his bedside I was so sad but I could feel those prayers of others buoying me up.  I could feel the presence of the spirit giving me comfort in my time of need. I was so appreciative that I was able to say goodbye, to kiss his head one more time. As I wondered how we would get along without him I was comforted to know that he was happy to be able to work again without this earthly body holding him back.
I called Scott and had him bring the kids over to say goodbye.  It was hard for the older ones but I felt it was good closure for them.  Although my little ones keep asking, "Is grandpa still dead? When does he come alive again?  Doesn't he get resurrected?" What an amazing opportunity to teach my children more about the gospel.  To their understanding Jesus was only dead for 3 days then was resurrected.  After almost a week they asked "Okay mom its been more than 3 days when is grandpa coming back?"  It's taken some time for them to understand when they have no concept of time.  But again I am blessed to have so many chances to talk and teach of their grandpa, the gospel and my testimony.
I was surprised of the joyful spirit that accompanied his viewing Monday night.  Even though the weather was cold and rainy I felt the prayers of everyone supporting me.  I found it oddly comforting to help those that were really struggling with my dad's death.  When someone would come up so sad and so upset I found myself smiling and saying it was going to be okay.  That's the difference the knowledge of the gospel makes.
I think his brother David took it the hardest.  It took him all night to get up to the casket to say goodbye to his best friend and partner in crime.
The hardest part for me was the next day at the final viewing when they closed the casket.  I could feel my heart break in two as the final screws sealed his body in the beautiful casket my brother-in-law Matt made as  a tribute to him, a fellow carpenter and master craftsman.
The service was beautiful, funny, and spiritual.  All of his children including me talked and there were 3 musical numbers.  I conducted the grandchildren in singing families can be together forever. It almost took everything out of me to do it.  But I am comforted to know my parents were sealed in the temple for time and all eternity. 
The grave side service was short but sweet and extremely cold.  I am starting to think it was designed that way on purpose so that we wouldn't stand around and wallow in our sadness.  My dad hated it when we were idle.  He had a quote in his office that said "the greatest cure for worry is work."
So in honor of my dad and his love for work that he instilled  in us I put myself work the day after.  I got out my chainsaw and cut down all those branches I had piling up.  I was so grateful my chainsaw didn't give me any guff.  I think my dad had a hand in its performance.  The hard labor was so therapeutic for me I just wish the weather would get nicer for more therapy sessions.
As of now I am doing okay.  Of course there are times when I spontaneously break down into tears of sadness.  Usually it is triggered by a memory or seeing something that my dad would have done or said.  I was driving into the Walmart parking lot when I saw this grandpa in a cowboy hat and boots holding hands with his grandsons walking toward the store.  Immediately my eyes filled with tears and I had to turn back.  I was too emotional to go to the store. I guess we will all just take it one day at a time.

Lucky

It has been a wonderful and tough couple of weeks.  As most of you know my dad has had Chondrosarcoma, a form of cancer.  It has been an emotional roller coaster to say the least.  One day he has years then next day months to weeks to days.  It seemed like every time he went into the doctor his prognosis was changed.  While his official diagnosis gave him till Christmas he waited until the flowers bloomed, I think for my mother.
He would have good days and bad days.  As he neared the end  he needed 24 hour care.  I was more than happy to volunteer my time to take car of this great man who has done so much for me in my life.  While it was extremely hard to watch his body decline more and more each day, I really was blessed to spend this time with him.  I would snuggle up to him and hold his hand while we watched his favorite shows.  He would boss me around when I wasn't doing what he wanted (that's how I knew he was still with us.) If I was too quiet he would reach out and grab my hand and give it a little squeeze. Sometimes he would ask about materials for a building job he thought he was on, then there were those times of clarity where he was all with me and then all with angels from heaven.  It was very clear to me that  there is life beyond our time here on earth.

The last picture I took of him

doesn't this look just like my Brennen

He loved his grand kids

He gave me my love for yard work.

 There is an amazing spirituality to someone with one foot on the other side.  Although it is a sad time, more so it is a faith building wonderful time.  When the veil is so thin.
At one time it was just my mom and dad when he was looking around and asked my mom " Who are all these people here?"  My spiritual giant of a mother recognizing the spirit asked "You don't recognize any of them?"  To which he replied "no."
"You will" she answered.
Another time he was semi sleeping when  he says "Chad! Chad!"  like he was greeting his brother who just walked in the room.  (it must be noted that his brother Chad had passed away 3 years ago.)  My mom came over and sat down next to him waking him up all the way.  She asks "Is Chad here?"  catching himself my dad says "no." (like are you crazy Chad passed away)
I was with him on his last full day of life.  I watched as he slept then reached out to others that were there that I could not see, but I could clearly see him make the motions of shaking people's hands.  What a spiritual experience. I will never forget the spirit I felt during these times as those on the other side came to greet and escort my dad.
He even told my mom that he had a job to do on the other side and that he needed to get there.  When I got the call from my mother the next morning that he had passed away my heart broke.  I understand it is selfish of me to want him to stay when his quality of life was so poor.  But all I could think of as I rushed over to see him, was the man my children would not get to know, I thought of how hard it must be form my mother to lose her sweetheart of so many years, and how my first superhero turned from mortality toward heaven.  I'll miss you dad.  I loved you so much, I hope I can make you proud.

memories of dad

These next few stories are from my sister Kate. . .

(the comments in parenthesis are Jane) 

Sometimes I didn't want to go to bed but everyone told me to go to sleep in my own bed.  But I didn't want to miss out on anything, so I would eventually fall asleep on the couch.  Dad would always put on an extra warm Indian blanket on us.  Under that tough exterior is and old softy. -Kate

Dad's love of history.- One summer he and mom decided to take what kids were left at home on a church history tour.  We stopped at every single church history site from Utah all the way past New York, and on to Canada to see the falls.  Mom would get up real early to start driving and dad would drive late into the night.  It took us one week to see everything in our trusty motor home, the only Ford we ever owned.  Every state we got a different magnet.  That motor homes whole oven was full of magnets and will still be collected.  When we were younger my dad would always collect shot glasses.  It was kind of funny because we didn't drink alcohol so we used them as Kool Aid shot glasses. -Kate

Another motor home adventure was when dad had to see monument valley.  This was the longest most boring trip I had been on.  It felt like we drove for days.  Then we started to get excited.  I looked out the window and saw wild horses running across the flat mesa rocks.  Then we finally made it to monument valley,  well almost, dad pulled the motor home over to the side of the road got out and said "Lyn take my picture." then got back in and started to drive away.  Apparently he didn't want to pay for the tour to drive out and touch the rock formation.  So my mom convinced us to go into the visitors shop and also go check out the local Indians.  Dad bought a cool tomahawk there. -Kate

I was one of the naughtiest kids growing up and had a lot of sass.  One day I don't remember what I said but my dad picked me up and carried me out to the winter cold night and threw me in the freezing cold hot tub clothes on and all. (Kate was most likely sassing my mom.  My dad would take a lot of heat but don't ever sass mom when he's around he would not stand for it.) -Kate

My dad and I had a good connection. We are both people of few words.  I think he liked that.  I loved to ride horses too, we went on a lot of rides together so he trained me well.  Everyday after school I would saddle up run all the way to the equestrian center behind our house race barrels  then run to the top of the mountain and back home.
One day dad thought Duchesses cold Duke was ready to be ridden and being all macho in front of a guy, I grabbed my boots and jumped on that horse.  Well before I could swing my leg over to the other side the colt bucked and threw me tight onto the hitching post legs apart.  Thank goodness I am not a boy but I had a really hard time walking back home across the front lawn. -Kate

(Dad would often use us kids to break in horses.  He did that because we were tough and light.  It wouldn't be too much of a shock for the horse for a child to get on.  That being said some horses took longer to get used to a rider than others.  My personal limit was about 5 throws.  If a horse bucked me off 5 times I was done for the day.  ) -Jane

Dad loves cars and I don't know much about them but I pretend I do.  Dad found Grandpa Cleo's old red 79 Chevy pickup, we restored it as best we could with a lot of Bondo and I drove that in high school. Always wanting to be like the guys I had to have a truck.  Dad got me 4 other trucks to drive.  No matter how maay accidents or blown engines I had he never said a word.  I think my dad was good at teaching us that stuff is just stuff, and the older the better cause its easier and cheaper to fix.  -Kate

I don't know how but every where I went people knew who my dad was.  I could mention his name and get his special discount. -Kate

Beeing the second to youngest I had a lot of advantages.  I got to go on a lot of trops.  My mom and dad took me to Cozumel, Argentina, Belieze and millions of motor home rides, Hawaii twice and I never had to pay for anything but my souvenears and activities. -Kate

( Dad loved to give his kids anything in his power.  If you ever needed something and he didn't have it to give it to you he would find a way to get it for you.  I call it the poor kids syndrome.  He wanted to give us things he never had, sometimes it was way above and beyond)- Jane

dad was good to take care of mom always letting her be herself with adventure and disiplining us.  They never fought in front of us and dad was always their for dinner.  It made our family seem perfect. -Kate

Christmas was a lot of fun growing up.  We had so many kids that presents filled the entire peach room.  And still every year their was always something hiding outside. (He loved Christmas and loved to give.  We always had some "homeless" people over for some part of the Christmas holiday, dad always had an extra In-and Out shirt, flannel,  or flashlight to give them so they would have something). -Kate

Giving was easy for dad to do.  Anything you wanted to borrow you just had to ask where it was.  He often came by our new house with a truck bed full of garden tools and other things we might need.  I think my dad supported more than 5 young men from our ward on their missions. -Kate

Dad was always early to church, honking the horn cause I was the last one out of the house. -Kate

Grandpa's truck

Another dad story.
My cousin was visiting from back east.  It was her first time seeing mountains like ours.  I remember her comment as we picked them up from the airport.  We were driving home when she asked " do you always see mountains like these?"  It never occurred to me that someone had never seen mountains.  My reply was "wait till you see where we live, the mountain is our backyard."  We enjoyed our time getting to know each other.
Now growing up my dad had us driving at a very young age.  It started with backing up trailers. He was always moving trailers around.  We called it "playing musical trailers".  I think it was his way of keeping inventory.  I have backed up more trailers than I can count.  When we went to buck hay bails if your were too small to lift a 50 lbs bail you drove the truck with the trailer attached.  So by the age of 12 I was very comfortable driving a truck.  One day we (my sister Stephanie, my cousin, and I) were out driving Grandpa's truck that my dad had recently restored.  I think we were just taking the trash up the lane.  My cousin asked if she could drive the truck back down the lane.  Stephanie and I were a little hesitant.  We still didn't know this cousin very well nor did we know if she knew how to drive a truck, or if we should let her drive our grandpa's newly restored one.  She convinced us that she had also been driving for a long time and was very capable.
As she pulled up to the driveway she punched the gas instead of the brake, driving right through the garage divider.  We were all frozen with fear.  Steph  and I knew it was our fault.  We should have listened to that still small voice. All the parents came out to see what had happened.  My uncle (my mom's brother) was frantically pacing and sweating up a storm not really knowing what to do.  My dad comes out, takes one look at the truck.  Which by the grace of God didn't have a scratch on it.  And says simply,

 "That's a good truck!"

  My uncle couldn't believe his ears.  We couldn't believe it.  That was it?  Where was the yelling and the grounding or the threatening to whip us with a belt?  There was none.  I am sure he was mad even furious but he was always so calm in times of disaster.  I think he knew that yelling wasn't going to fix things and we already felt so bad about the whole thing, that a calm approach was more damning than any grounding could ever accomplish.

Lucky's surprise

This year has been a tender year for my dad so my sister decided to throw a surprise party for his birthday.  I was more than happy to let her take the reins on this one because I was already quite busy.  My assignments were to get the cake,and Oreos, and set up a Lucky "shrine"  I put out the word that I wanted to collect stories of my dad.  He is quite the character and I knew there were so many good stories that I hadn't heard.  I want to have a record of these stories and put them in a book for future posterity so that others may know what an amazing man this guy is.  Sooo my sister Kate insisted I set up a shrine so that other could record their stories to add to the book.  I only got a few written stories but there was an open mic for those that know my dad and boy did I get some stories there.  Thank goodness for smart phones with a recorder in them or I would never have gotten all the juicy details down.  

As I listened to these stories I couldn't help but parallel them to things and people in my life.  I see where I have gotten a lot of my attributes.  I always thought I was a lot like my mom but I learned that there is a lot of my dad in me too. Not to mention the astounding similarities between my dad and my Brennen. Not only do their baby pictures look like the same kid there personalities are equally so.

The party turned out pretty good with pulled pork sandwiches and olive garden salad. Not to mention all of my dad's favorite goodies including Oreo's, popcorn,  BYU brownies, and ice cream. I was impressed with all my aunts and uncles that came long distances to help celebrate this gentle giants birthday. 

My brothers put a killer playlist together of all dad's favorite music.  It was a little much for some but for me it was pure nostalgia. It's always good to get together with family especially mine where I feel like I meet someone new every time.  My dad is Lucky number 13 out of 15 children with no multiple births.  Each of them have large families and I want to say ours is the smallest with 8 kids, so I have over 150 cousins on one side. So yes I often do meet new family at these functions.  I also love to see the regulars at each event and catch up on what's going on in their lives.  2 of my favorites are my Aunt Jeanine and Aunt Joy.  They always know who we are and are interested in what were doing.  Then there is my uncle David.  Those of you that know him. . . enough said.  Those of you that don't, let's just say his nickname is King David, a character that is as colorful as the sunset. Your always in for a treat when he opens his mouth, you never know what he's going to say.

most of my sisters Love these gals

cute cousins Wyatt and TK

swimming with horses

Once we came up to this lake (silver lake) and took our horses swimming.  Most people don't think of horses as swimmers but they are actually really good swimmers.  It is a fun experience swimming with such a massive graceful animal. One of these times, one of the horses got spooked while swimming and started panicking. His reins got caught under his hoof and every time he kicked it dunked his head under.  It is very dangerous to go near a panicked horse so the person riding him (I can't remember which sibling  it was) hopped off and swam for shore.  We knew the horse needed to calm down.  We all knew it was a matter of time for the horse to get exhausted and then we could go in and save him.
At this point some random person swam across the lake to the horse to get him back to shore.  I remember my dad being worried that the stranger was going to get himself hurt because it was obvious he knew nothing about horses.  Once the horse was tired we swam out with the other horse and unhooked the reins bringing the frightened animal back to shore with the stranger in tow.
The thing I remembered most about that experience was how calm and collected my dad was.  He wasn't nervous so we weren't nervous.
That's my dad cool as a cucumber.