42 Years Ago - A Father's Day Tribute

The day we were married started very early after a night of no sleep – nobody could ever sleep in rollers anyway, and it was a late night after I received my endowments in the Idaho Falls Temple on June 17, 1971.  We were staying in a motel across the river from the temple, and Brent and I spent some time alone together, breaking a joint fast together at an all-night restaurant and taking a little walk before retiring to our separate rooms.  I was sharing a room with my parents.   Dad asked me if I would like a blessing.  At that point I was secure in who I was and what was going on and I was fine with everything and thought I knew everything – after all, I was 18 years old. 

If I could turn back the clock for one minute, that is the moment I would go back to.  YES! I would shout.  Please, Dad, give me a Father’s Blessing.  How I would love to have that memory today.  How I would love to have just one Father’s Blessing in my mind and in my heart.   But, instead, I told him I was fine.  No blessing needed.

At that time in my life, I just did not know or even have an inkling of how important a blessing from a father can be.   I didn’t want to put him out.  My heart was in love with another man, and at that moment I was in the full throes of teenage superior-ism.  I knew more than my parents, I was a big girl now, I was starting my own family life and moving on, leaving them in the dust behind my bright dreams for a better life.

Sometime over the past 42 years I finally did grow up.  And instead of a better life, I started realizing the intense need for a bettered life, the need for the wisdom my parent’s years gave them, the need for the education they still have to offer me, and most important, the need for their love and the need for them as incredible individuals in my life.   

Strange that today, on this anniversary, my thoughts have turned to them this morning.  Probably because when I called Dad on Sunday to wish him a Happy Father’s Day and to tell him he is the best Dad a girl could ever ask for, he told me all about his atlas and how he could find where Dave lives now and how it was in a big square on one page and a little square in the San Francisco Bay area on the opposite page but it was the same square just …what’s the word?  Bigger?

Enlarged, I offered.

Yes, enlarged.

Five times he repeated the story to me, and five times he forgot he had just told me about it.  And that broke my heart.   Because I realized the Father who could have given me a blessing 42 years ago, the Father I turned down, is not with us anymore.  His memory is being clouded out by the dying cells of an aging brain, and his life is slowly sliding into the self-focused stupor of one who is racing towards his next step.  And in the process, he is reverting back to his childhood.

I love my dear Father.  I love all he has sacrificed, given, and taught me.  I love that he made us stop and read every single roadside marker and monument as we went on our few travel trips.  I love that he loves maps, and that he loves me.  I love that I have the legacy of a father who would talk gently to me in the middle of the night as our family camped out on the ground along the Wood River, and as I scratched my hundred mosquito bites and could not sleep, he talked to me about the billion stars above and distracted me with the wonders of the Universe until sleep finally caught me up and carried me away.  

I love that he was always learning and always sharing what he learned with the rest of us.  I love that he worked so hard for our family.  There was never enough money, it seemed, but he was always the optimist that tomorrow the dream would see reality.  I love his optimism.  I love his happy smile.  I love his hugs. I love that he spent all afternoon the day we got married setting up his stereo set so we could have beautiful music for our reception.  (That doesn't sound like much today, but back then his speakers were in boxes the size of a small organ and music was played on records - the wiring, the cleaning and dusting of the grooves, the making sure the needle worked right - it took him all afternoon.  I don't honestly remember the music, but I do remember the love and the care he gave to make sure I had it.)   I love that on my last night as a single woman, I got to share a room with him and with Mom and I love that he wanted to give me a Father’s Blessing at that time.  

I am blessed with two wonderful men in my life – my very worthy and good Father and my very wonderful and dear Husband, whom I will speak more about tomorrow.  But today, I just wanted to take a minute and record the feelings I’ve had this weekend with Father’s Day and thinking about my own sweet Dad.

June 18, 1971 - Reception in Wendell, Idaho.   L-R Mom (Norma), Brent's Mom (Edna), Brent's Dad (Leo), my Dad (Leland Junior) , David, Howard, Brent, Me, my friend Maureen, Ann, Susie, Connie, and Mark  (Arnie was on a mission in Japan and Ron and Joy were in San Francisco with the Army)