This Is The Day

I have dreaded this a long time.  My father's funeral.  So I've told you about the heel he was since he left.  But what was he before?

He was the parent that I felt loved me and got me.  He was the emotionally dependable one.  He was the one who spanked me, but I never felt the fear that I did with my mom.  I knew that the spankings he gave were from what he knew at the time not from being out of control.  He was the one that thought I was smart and pretty.  He was the one who set and kept rules.  So here are a few of the memories of the man I loved best until he was taken away when I was 15.

My earliest memories of my father were probably of sitting in his lap.  I loved sitting in his lap and always felt very safe there.  I remember loving to dance, particularly doing the twist, and my father would ask me to perform it for every adult he knew.  He had my mother sign me up for dance at the age of 4 and was not mad when I only went for a couple of lessons because I didn't like it.

When I was in the hospital for great lengths of time, he would come and visit me in the early mornings before he went to work.  I loved those early morning visits just the two of us.  My mom had thrown away my stuffed dog, Charlie, because it had gotten too ratty.  It was really like a security blanket to me and I was devastated to lose it.  My dad bought me a red stuffed poodle and brought it to the hospital.  It was a really cute dog but wired inside so it would stand up and not nearly so cuddly, but I loved it because my dad gave it to me.

My dad used to have a beer when he came home from work.  I hated the smell and the fact that he drank beer in front of us.  I asked him why he did it.  He said he liked something cold to drink.  I said that Kool Aid was cold.  He said that if I made Kool Aid for him every day, he would drink that.  And he did.  It was our ritual.  And he always said that he could tell it was made with love.

When I was young, I had a speech impediment and couldn't say my "R's."  I sounded like Elmer Fudd, "That waskcully wabbit."  I had speech therapy and it didn't help.  By early 5th grade, I was being bullied about it and kids would come to school with new words they had hear the night before.  "Joey, say Aurora."  I would sadly respond, "Aworwa."  Ha ha ha ha ha.  Except it wasn't funny to me.  I told my dad and he said, "Joey, the problem is that you just talk too fast.  Slow down and just think before you speak."  I practiced and practiced in front of the mirror and it didn't take long before the problem was solved.

I learned to sew in the 6th grade.  My dad often picked me up from my lessons out in Holladay.  I remember him taking me to the first McDonalds in Salt Lake and explaining how amazing it was that the hamburgers were ready made so there was no waiting. He thought it was an ingenious idea.  He also took me to the fabric store and patiently waited while I perused the aisles and there were a lot of aisles in that store on 57th South and 9th East.  He would take me once for the pattern, a few days later for the fabric and a few days later, I would tell him that I needed thread and a zipper.  This happened again and again and he always seemed to have money for my sewing.  Finally one day, he said, "Joey, I know what's happening and how much you are spending and it would just be easier buying it all at once. You're not putting anything over on me."  He said it with amusement, no irritation.  Perhaps I just liked those extra visits to the fabric store with him.

Once he sent me to the store to buy something.  He gave me a dollar and the change was 10 cents.  I put the 10 cents in a drawer at home.  Later he asked me about the change.  I told him that I didn't think he would care.  He gave me quite the lecture on honesty and how that 10 cents didn't belong to me until he gave it to me and it was very, very wrong to take anything that wasn't mine.  As an accountant, I have appreciated this lesson again and again.  Once, he took his check to be cashed at the corner store, something commonly done in those days.  When he and my mom were going over the money, he realized that the cashier had given him an extra $50.  He drove back to return it.  The cashier was so grateful and gave us a gallon of our favorite ice cream (Orange Cream-O that my mom served us with Apple Jack Cereal on top).  The cashier explained that he would have had to pay the $50 himself out of his pocket and he and his family could ill afford to do so.

When I started dating, he was very protective and very understanding and very angry at any boy who would bruise my little heart.  At the age of 15, I attended my first dance and he was adamant that I would not be brought back after 11:00 p.m.  Everyone else was staying until midnight and even my mother tried to persuade him, but he was decided.  My date left everyone else at the restaurant to take me home to make my curfew and then had to drive back to pick the rest of the party up.  But it made me feel loved and cared about.

When I was in junior high, all I wanted for 2 Christmases in a row was a Schwinn 10 speed bike.  I was convinced that it was the best and that nothing else would do.  I tried to earn my own money, but they were quite pricy at the time and I would never have reached the amount.  One day my mom asked me what color I would want out of the three because I was getting it for Christmas.  My father was so upset that she had spoiled the surprise and he had been so looking forward to seeing my face on Christmas morning when I finally got my bike.  Boy, oh boy, did I love riding that bike.

My friends and I loved to go to the movies at the Avalon theater.  It was quite a way from our home, but they showed old musicals and movies that I loved and loved.  I could always count on my dad to drive us there and back.

He was a story teller.  My mom was, too.  I come from a long line of storytellers.  My dad also loved to tell jokes and would come home with new ones all the time.  They were mostly so corny, but we would laugh and laugh.  Every April Fool's day that I could remember, he would awaken us with, "Wake up! It's snowing."  We would groan and moan. And once in a while it really was snowing which made the joke even more funny.

Once my sister, Kathy, and I were talking late into the night instead of going to sleep.  We giggled and talked and my dad came in for about the third time and told us that it was past bedtime and he was serious that we needed to go to sleep or we would get spankings.  He said, "This is absolutely the last time I'm going to tell you."  I said, "Good.  Now we can talk and laugh in peace without being disturbed again."  He burst into laughter and I knew all was good.  But I do think we went to sleep after that.  No use pushing it.

He loved to sing.  He loved musicals and he told me once that when he was in the navy, having joined at 17 when he graduated high school, he could never go to bars when he was on leave because he was underage.  So he would go to the movies in different ports and they always had American musicals playing.  We watched musicals as a family whenever they came on TV:  "The King and I," "South Pacific," "The Music Man," "Carousel."  It was an event.  We had all of the records and my dad loved to sing to the Baritone parts.  He would often sing, "I talk to the trees, but they don't listen to me," making note that's how he felt in a family of 5 daughters.  We would laugh and laugh and thought he made the song up.  I was most surprised years later when I learned there was a real song with those lyrics from "Paint Your Wagon."

As I have typed these memories, it is the first time that I have cried for losing my dad.  Well, the first time that I've cried since he died.  I really loved my dad.  I thought he was the handsomest and the smartest.  I thought that he loved me best.  He was my port in the storm of my family.

As I visited him in his hospital bed last week, I could tell that this was the Joey he always remembered. This was the one he missed.  This was the one he knew.  And today I miss that Dad that I knew.

I do think there were times he missed us.  Why he didn't keep us in his life, as my sister, Teri, said, "I honestly don't know."

Time today to close the door, to trust in the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, in his grace and ability to heal.

Time to thank my Father, my Heavenly Father for his firm, foundational love which never wavers; for doing what a mortal man cannot do and always being there for me.