Bringing the dead to life.

November 12 is a death/birth anniversary. Five years ago my dad died. Four years ago my little boy was born on the very same day.


He doesn't know, of course. I don't think I'll tell him the story until he's much older. I say that like there's all these other stories I tell him about his grandad instead. I don't. I don't tell him much about my mom either, even though she died only two months later.


Kenny does. My little guy can pick my parents out of pictures. He knows they live in Heaven. He knows their ears were broken so they used sign language. And that might be it.


It's pretty sad. He's nearly four. He should probably know a lot more than that. But I don't know what to say. Somewhere in the back of my mind is this idea that I'll write it all down for him. And for my daughter. So they'll know that my mom was an incredibly talented artist and that my dad defied more odds than most people ever face in a lifetime. I tell myself I'll write down how my mom used to Indian leg wrestle us to see who had to take out the garbage or how my dad had an insanely green thumb and grew vegetables none of us would eat.


I tell myself that. I should be able to, right? I'm an author, for the love of Pete. This is my thang, isn't it?


But  . . . I can't. 


I don't know how. How do you take something as huge as the sixty years each of them lived and distill it into a story that your children can hold and read and somehow know them? I can't. 


I'm pretty good at knowing my limits. When I know that something is beyond me, I drop it in favor of doing something I can rock. I like to be productive. But this need to tell their stories . . . it doesn't go away. I'm the only way my kids will ever know my mom and dad. I truly don't believe my husband would fully understand me if he hadn't met my parents before they died. And my kids will be missing a key to understand a part of themselves, the part that they get from me, and that I got from my parents.


When the Casual Blogger Conference rolled around last time, I passed. I know my voice, I'm not trying to make money, and I don't care about growing my audience. But I kicked myself later. I missed out on meeting and hugging a lot of cool people I would never otherwise see. I swore to myself that the next time it rolled around, I'd be all over it.


Enter the Story at Home conference in SLC and its blogging track. I thought, "Ah! NOW I can meet and hang out with my blogging friends." But then stuff started coming up, logistical stuff, and I was like, "Not this time either."


But I changed my mind again. Because I'm not doing the blogging track. I'm going to learn about how to write a family history. Specifically, my dad's history, to start. I'm going to learn how to make him come alive again for my two littlest ones in a way that they can maybe feel like they know him, so that they can see him in themselves, and love him even in his absence.


You should come. Whether it's a family story or your own personal one you need to figure out how to tell, whether it's just so you and I can finally meet and hug, or whatever your reason, you should come. It's the cheapest conference I've heard of: $79. Seriously . . . come.


(Here's the info: This super cool conference for blogging / storytelling / personal and family history /writing is happening March 8-10, 2012 in Salt Lake City.  It's called The Power of Story @ Home, and it's sponsored by Cherish Bound, Family Search, and the Casual Bloggers Community.  This is a link to their website.)

Only the good die young

My dad only lived a month past his 60th birthday. Today he would have been 65. I'm doing things to help me remember him today. Wearing an LSU shirt, eating orange Tic Tacs and a Payday candy bar. And this, writing a list of 10 Things My Dad Taught Me.


1. No one can get in your way. No one.
2. The gospel is true. If you can understand that you're a child of God, that will be the permanent bedrock of your testimony.
3. Never leave a good bargain unpurchased. Even if you don't need it.
4. Change the oil in your car regularly or you're an idiot.
5. When someone needs help, help them. Without conditions. Just do it.
6. Let people help you. They really actually want to.
7. Education is the great equalizer.
8. The ability to teach is a gift. Use it, and teach what you love.
9. Star Trek: Next Generation  is the greatest show ever made. 
10. Being the dad your daughter can talk to is one of the most valuable gifts you can give her.


He was so awesome, you guys. So awesome.

Remembering

Four years ago today, I was sitting in my classroom at my desk, doing something on my computer. I don't remember what. Grades, maybe? I had a room full of eighth graders working in noisy but efficient groups to get a project done. It was fifth period and my principal walked in. He did that several times a week as a way for the kids to know that he was paying attention to his campus and he knew what they were doing. (He was the best boss I ever had.) Instead of walking among them and observing their groups, or even standing in the corner to watch for a few minutes, he headed straight for my desk.

And I knew.

"Mrs. Jacobson, could you get your things and come with me? Mrs. Lightfeldt will be taking over your class."

I didn't even ask why. I scooped up my purse and headed outside. Just outside my classroom door, my husband stood waiting for me. A newly minted husband of four weeks, to be exact. He held out his arms and I walked into them. 

My mom was dead.

I had texted him less than an hour before where he sat at a desk in her bedroom, working and listening for her rattling breaths. 

How is she?

He answered quickly. Fine. Sleeping.

But when he got up to make sure, he leaned over her and realized she wasn't drawing breath anymore. So he got my sister, and they checked again. We knew she was going to die. He was there with her so she wouldn't be alone. I couldn't take any more time off of work because I'd taken a week for my dad's funeral two months before and I'd have to take another week for my mom's since each of them was being laid to rest in Louisiana, two thousand miles away.

But Kenny was there. Kenny was there in her last moment, just like he'd been there in the very first moment that everything started to go terribly, horribly wrong.

I remember that night, too. I ended my cell phone call as we pulled into his parents' place and said, "Her doctor ordered a CAT scan. He's only doing that because he thinks the cancer is back and he wants to know how far it got."

The answer was that in three months' time, she'd gone from a completely clean post-cancer check up to Stage  4. It was in her liver and it was traveling.

It broke my dad's heart. He'd had issues of his own after a post-surgical complication that scarred his lungs. He couldn't take care of her this time like he had the first time. They lay on their bed together, frail and tired, and young. So young. He was 60. She was 59. The worse she got, the less he ate. 

And then a flu came. And he died. He weighed 104 pounds. My dad was almost six feet tall.

She fought a little longer. She held on until my wedding, plus a little more. I was married on their anniversary.

Then a few weeks later, she was done. She fell asleep. Then she didn't wake up.

I get busy. I think I don't miss them. I think I'm doing all right. But I can't really look at their picture. It hurts to breathe for a moment when I stumble across their handwriting in my papers somewhere.

My babies don't know them. My dad would have been whupped over Eden.

And I say to myself that it's fine because of someday.

And mostly it is. 

But today, I'll remember. It's been four years.

And I miss her. I miss them. I'm kind of even not really mad at my dad anymore. His heart broke. Sometimes it happens.

Dream on

I dreamed about my dad last night. It's maybe only the fourth time since he died four years ago that I've done that. It wasn't all prophetic or creepy or anything. They never are. They're just really normal dreams. Maybe that's why they're so comforting. Sometimes when I have a bad or weird dream about other random things (snakes!), I have a dream hangover that lasts all day.


But not today. It was the opposite. My whole day has been just a little warmer and fuzzier. Last night's dream (or I guess this morning's dream) was me going with my dad to the doctor for a minor procedure he had to have. And it was just like in real life where I bullied him into the car and all the way to the office (to cover for my worry) and he grumbled the whole time (but secretly loved me fussing over him). That was it. Nothing more than that. In the other dream with him that I remember, I was outside weeding a flowerbed and he walked out holding one of my kids. And that was all. We just talked. I was pregnant with the Grant at the time. I don't remember if my dad was holding a boy or a girl in the dream. I like to think it was Grant Baby.


I had a nice day. I like good dreams.

Because it's the right thing to do . . .

By the time my dad was my age, he'd escaped death a few times. That's not poetic license; it's cold, hard, amazing truth. He was diagnosed just past thirty and it went something like this: "You have cancer. It's rare, it's incurable, it's metastasized, and the best we can do is cut all of it out that we can find and blast you with a bunch of radiation. But it probably won't work. You've got six weeks. Sorry."


He hung on, though. For a few years, he endured brutal, barbaric treatments until his doctors decided to try this newfangled treatment called "chemotherapy." It made all the brutal stuff before seem like roasting marshmallows and singing "Kumbaya" around the campfire. It required days in the hospital, he lost weight he didn't have to spare, his hair fell out. I was really little. It was horrifying to watch him rattle up the sidewalk after a chemo treatment, skeletal and frail but with a big, tired smile on his face to reassure me.


But he survived. And although the cancer specter loomed for years, it didn't come back. For TWENTY-FIVE years, he was clear. That's pretty much as close to cured as it gets. It was a miracle.


But those brutal treatments he endured exacted an extremely high price on his body. He suffered side effects that resulted in heart damage, nerve damage, and a combination of other problems that would make an endocrinologist weep. Yes, chemo saved his life, but it was a new protocol and he paid that price his whole life.


In November of 2005, he sat us down, now grown adults, and informed us calmly that a node in his throat had been biopsied and tested positive for cancer. It wasn't the same cancer as the one from years before. This was altogether different. It was non-Hodgkins lymphoma and his prognosis was good. Normally a slow growing cancer that isn't caught until it's in its advanced stages, his had been caught because he was screened so regularly for EVERYTHING due to his history. He was only Stage 1, maybe Stage 2. 


Heck, that was practically grounds for throwing a party at our house.


Except, he had to go through chemo again. And things got grim real quick at the dining room table.


I remembered the hell of his treatments when I was a kid and my brother and sister remembered the stories.


But we cowboyed up like we were taught, and when he came home from his first chemo treatment, we were waiting, braced for the worst. And yet, the day was already different. He'd driven himself for an outpatient treatment where he sat in a cushy chair and took it easy for a little while. And he drove himself home. And he walked in with a smile on his face. And he felt fine. And he ate regularly. And over the next few days he continued to feel fine. And his hair never fell out.


And we all began to relax. For him, with this cancer and this treatment, chemotherapy in the grand scheme of his health history, had become No Big Deal.


Know why? Faith, yes. Prayer, yes. Blessings, yes. And MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY. 


I often contribute to cancer research causes because I've seen what a difference 25 years of research can make. I figure with my family history, it's only a matter of time before I catch The Big C, so I do what I can to bank against that almost-certain future: I get the screenings my insurance will cover (2 moles removed last week, thankyouverymuch) and I donate to researchers who may one day make chemo obsolete or in the case of my dad, totally tolerable. AND effective. He got to end his sessions EARLY.


My editor at Covenant, Eliza, is one of these crazy people who looks at a mountain and says, "I'd like to climb that." Or in this case, looks at a 26.2 mile ribbon of road and says, "I'd like to run that." Why? I don't know why. I see a mountain and say, "That looks pretty" or a winding stretch of road and say, "I should keep that in mind for a Sunday drive."


But that crazy Eliza is going to run a marathon to help raise funds for cancer research. NO. They're trying TO STOP BLOOD CANCERS, like the one my dad had and beat. Because there was RESEARCH that led to an effective cure and a treatment that left him with some dignity. 


If you could, hop over to her fundraising site and throw a few bucks her way to help sponsor her and STOP STUPID CANCER. Please CLICK HERE and make a donation. Do it for me. Do it for anyone you know who has ever been affected by lymphoma, Hodgkins, or leukemia. Because those things suck and there will come a time when the research will outsmart the cancer and we won't even need a cure because we'll have the vaccine. So go ahead, click and donate. I did it.


Just as an added incentive, anyone who donates this week will be entered in a drawing for a copy Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (book #3 in the Hunger Games trilogy), courtesy of moi, because that book will be tres awesome and an awesome donor deserves an awesome book. I think Eliza will be able to tell who entered and I'll let you know who wins.


You can get more information here and here.


*My dad did pass away a few years ago, but it wasn't because of stupid cancer, so THERE, cancer. You didn't win.

I swore I would never do this . . .

Dude.


I've turned into my dad. And I'm not just talking about the obnoxious chin whiskers and single crazy eyebrow hair that lurks and lurks and then suddenly stands up and dances the Electric Slide right when I'm trying to make a good impression on someone. Thank goodness my husband already loves me because that might be a deal breaker.

Anyway, I'm not talking about crazy hair DNA. Nor am I talking about his penchant for fastening a fancy trouser belt around his ratty red bathrobe when he couldn't find the tie that belonged to do it. I'm also not referring to his tendency to cry during dramatic episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I share all of these traits with him, but I've known about them for a long time.


No, I'm talking about a new realization that struck me as I gave people a tour of our house on Sunday. (Doesn't that sound grand and not like it's just a modest house on a slightly small lot in a new-ish planned community?) 


Anyway, I pointed out a sofa and I was like, "Yeah, my mother-in-law found that sectional brand new for $320." And then a moment later I was all, "Kenny fixed these bathroom cabinets with spray lacquer for $60 instead of paying the painters $1500." And then I pointed out the three-year-old washer/dryer I scored on Craigslist for $200. And then I sat down to write an email on the refurbished laptop my husband bought me last week for $400 because my old one gave up the ghost.


Yeah. I turned into my dad.


I miss him.


But it might have been a good thing that he passed away before he discovered Craigslist. He'd have gone broke saving money.

I'm singin' out, sistahs!

Thanks to MGM, my family history is totally getting done. Well, in oral form. My husband caught the family history bug a couple of months ago and spends his Sundays tracing family lines and emailing with distant cousins he's never met about long-dead cousins none of them ever knew. He has a lot of fun with and it's fun for me to see.


Now, I come from a line of avid genealogists on my dad's side. You know the kind. (They have a wink and a handshake deal with their local Catholic diocese to dig around in their records whenever they want. They wrote a book. There are boxes of pedigree charts.) That kind.


I do family history stuff, too. I just uh . . . well, I have a slightly different approach. On Sundays lately, we've been watching old musicals. Singin' in the Rain, The Music Man, Mary Poppins. And as we watch them, I tell my boys stories about growing up watching the same movies with my parents. They died a couple of years ago, so my oldest remembers them well but my youngest never knew them. I tell them about how Singin' in the Rain was my dad's favorite movie of all time. He checked out a book from the library about it when I was a kid and I learned all kinds of trivia about it each time we watched it together. Which was a lot, by the way. I saw that movie more than any other in my childhood. Did you know that Gene Kelly's famous scene where he actually performs "Singin' in the Rain" was performed in one take because he was running a fever of 103 and knew he had to nail on the first shot? Or that the rain in that scene is actually water mixed with milk so it would show up better on film? I know what seem like a million tidbits like that from my dad and I share them bit by bit as I watch it time again with my sons, same as he did with me.


I tell them about how Uncle Jamie always cracked up during "Make 'Em Laugh" and how we both loved the "Moses" song. And how my dad always kind of thought Donald O'Connor was a better dancer than Gene Kelly.


When I finally get my hands on Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, I'll tell them how my girlfriends all wanted to marry Benjamin and how we would laugh ourselves silly at whoever had to play Dorcas when we re-enacted the movie.


I tell them how the very first tape my brother ever bought was the soundtrack for The Music Man and that we used to perform the "Shapoopie" song with my cousins because we thought it was so funny.


I know it's not on a flash drive somewhere or printed out to hand down to my great-great-grandkids, but my children are learning important lessons about where they come from.


And I totally have to get West Side Story. My oldest is going to love Officer Krupke. I did, when I was a kid, because my parents made sure I saw it and my kids will see it too.

So this confession is honest but it may not make you like me better. It's the true story of how it was.

I definitely resented my parents at times, not necessarily for being deaf, but for some of their choices. I mean, I understood that they had no control over being born deaf, but they could hear well enough to make things tricky. My dad had a profound hearing loss which means total nerve damage, but through a series of blessings given to him over the years, he functioned far better than people with lesser hearing losses. My mom had a severe hearing loss. She could maybe hear 20% of what was going on around her. She and my dad were both raised orally, meaning with intensive speech therapy and no sign language, so they were master lip readers and speakers, and extremely competent at understanding content based on context. They both learned sign language in college and switched to that as their primary form of communication, but their ability to speak and lip read...well, sometimes even I got suspicious...

I mean, were they really deaf? It seemed sometimes like they could hear when they wanted to. As a kid, I often wondered if they were faking being deaf and just tricking us so they could get us kids to do more stuff for them. As an adult, I found out that my younger brother and sister had the same suspicions.

As it turned out though, they really were deaf.

The resentment came from having to do a lot of things that other little kids never had to do, and since I'm the oldest, most of it fell to me to take care of. It's pretty easy for deaf people to communicate now, what with email and Blackberries and video relay services. As a kid, I didn't have any of that stuff to bail me out. At six years old, I would have to call and make doctor's appointments or handle calls to my parents if they couldn't understand the person on the other end. With their hearing aids and the special volume control they had on the phone, they could get by most of the time, but they needed me often enough for it to wear thin, sometimes.

As I got older, the resentment came from other things. These are the choices I mentioned. We never did sports as kids because my parents didn't have the money and my dad's health was too poor to invest in something like that. However, as we grew older, my siblings and I (there's just the three of us) got involved with things in high school, especially academic stuff. I went to the national mock trial competition with two different states (Louisiana and then California) and they never came to see one match, not even at the county level. My dad said they would be bored without interpreters.

It really bothered me. I felt like it was kind of beside the point. I figured the point was just to show up and be there, but they didn't see it that way. My brother kind of felt like that too. I guess over time we learned to shrug it off, but not completely. It still bothers me, sometimes.

Also, we attended a deaf branch when we moved back to California. It was awesome for my parents because they finally got to participate fully in church and I was happy about that, but we got tapped to interpret a lot in church when there weren't enough adults to go around and sometimes...we just wanted to be kids, to enjoy youth conference without having to interpret for a classmate or whatever. Most CODAs feel this way at some point.

There were compensations, though. My parents died two years ago, but I have rich memories of them centered in the language of thought, which is probably the best way to explain ASL. There are things you just can't explain in English that are so easy to get across in ASL. I have great memories of my mom explaining the origin of certain signs to me in a way that made them indelible, and I bet no one else has ever thought of the same explanation. I'll always remember how lovely she looked when she led the congregation in hymns every Sunday, her hands tracing out concepts about God and glory and grace in the air, painting the clearest picture. I'll always remember the way my dad's face would move so expressively, perfectly conveying his thoughts which is an earmark of ASL. I'll always remember his contributions to spreading the gospel in the deaf community. He and his three companions were the first LDS missionaries called to teach the gospel to the deaf, and in later years he worked on helping the Church translate the scriptures into ASL dvds.

So in yesterday's question, Josi asked how I reconciled the issue of their deafness in my life and how it relates to me as an adult. The answer is that in hindsight, they did their best, but sometimes the load was heavy and as children we were asked to shoulder a part. I don't think it's anything different than what many children have done for their parents whether it's because of a disability or a language barrier. And I know my life is far richer for the experience.

Thanks, Josi, for asking the question. I think later this week I'll revisit deafness once more for the time being to share the lighter side too, because believe me, there are some funny things about deaf culture and growing up in it. And maybe even later, I'll share a little more of the tought stuff, too, but honestly? It all shook out all right, you know?

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas

I am awash in a sea of memories, drifting on the gentle swells of Bing Crosby's voice from my White Christmas CD.

White Christmas. That was my dad's favorite Christmas song. When we were kids, he made us learn it in sign language and perform it at every family get together. I hated it then. I'd do it now on a stage in front of the whole entire world if it meant another Christmas with him. That probably makes more sense if you know my parents were deaf.

My mom liked the Christmas hymns best. I have memories of her sticking in a cassette tape and cranking it up, then signing the most beautiful versions of her favorite songs like "O, Holy Night" and "O, Little Town of Bethlehem," her graceful hands and arms tracing the most beautiful Christmas stories in the air, for no one's benefit but her own because she loved those songs so much.

This will be my second Christmas without my parents. My second Christmas that my dad doesn't stuff a grip of batteries on top of the orange my mom always put in the toe of our stockings. The second year that we don't pull out our nice Christmas dishes and spend the afternoon in the kitchen making a turkey gumbo as a family. The second year we don't all squish onto their bed together and watch hours of movies.

I thought it would be easier than last year.

It's not.

But there are consolations, like the ongoing territory war baby G and I are having over the Christmas tree that reduces me to giggles several times a day. Or the stacks of holiday cooking magazines, beckoning me to turn out plate after tin of Christmas baking goodnesss. Or the parties full of friends and laughter.

Missing my mom and dad won't go on forever. If I play my cards right, only the good stuff will go on forever, in its truest sense.

I, Melanie, having been born of goodly parents....

I think they taught me well. I hope they feel like they did. Because I'm counting on forever with them.

It really is a circle. Life.

The night my dad died was strange. He'd been in the hospital for a couple of days for a stomach flu that his frail body was having trouble managing. His health had been deteriorating slowly for the year before that, though. It's a long story but the nutshell goes like this: he took a bad fall and busted his neck, had surgery and got it fixed, but old scar tissue in his lungs made his recovery after surgery difficult and he struggled to breathe and eat normally. By the time this flu hit, he was down to only just over a hundred pounds. And he was tired. Very tired.

In hindsight, it's obvious he'd been dying for a couple of months, but my dad was a bit of a miracle and he'd defied several medical death sentences since I was a kid. But this time, by Saturday morning of that weekend, we knew he would not pull through. Even then, it took a little while to sink in. He was still lucid that morning, answering a call about a baptism in his branch. (He was the president of the deaf branch of our church, which is like being the pastor of a small congregation). But an hour later, when a member of the stake presidency stopped by to visit, I couldn't get my dad to answer anything. He wasn't asleep. He just....wasn't there. He looked without seeing.

That evening at his nurse's urging, we brought my mom to visit him and say goodbye. She sat there, wiped out from her own battle with cancer and chemo, her little lace cap covering her bald head, and she talked to him. She talked and talked. Quietly, and mostly by putting his hands on hers while she signed, maybe thinking he would "hear" her better that way. She mostly told him how she loved him and thanked him for the life they had together. Then she was exhausted and we took her home and put her to bed.

I had been at the hospital most of the day and my brother volunteered to stay the night. My fiancee and I tried to get some sleep, with him squishing onto the red couch in my room, unwilling to leave me alone for the night.

I tried to sleep, knowing I would need the energy for a hospital vigil the next day. But every time I would nearly drift off, I felt a physical tug jerking me awake. I started up each time, but there was never anything there. This happened several times, until finally, I drifted to sleep and stayed there. The next thing that woke me was my phone. It was five in the morning and still dark, and in my disorientation I scrambled in a panic to find it while it rang. It was the hospital, telling me my dad had died a few minutes before. The rest of the morning is a mixture of blurs and total clarity and they are special moments I'll one day tell my children about.

But my brother was home, and I was surprised to find he was not still with my dad. Then he explained why he left. He said that he had read that many times, a loved one is reluctant to leave their body and often won't when family is around. He told my dad several times, "Go home, it's okay," signing and voicing it. But he felt a kind of reluctance from my dad. He tried leaving the room for long minutes at a time, but when he returned, my dad was still there. He worried that my dad might be hanging around for him. So finally my brother told my dad to go home and that it was okay one last time, and he left. We got the call an hour or so later, I think.

I'm not a theologian. I have only a theory about that night. Members of our church believe in the ordinance of sealing, which binds our families forever, even through death. I am sealed to my parents. I believe the tugging sensation I felt each time I dozed was the tug of my father's spirit on that sealing bond as he ventured to his spiritual home, and the snap back when my brother would re-enter the room. I think when I finally slept, it was because my dad had slipped away. This is just what I believe and I have a testimony of the sealing power.

The next several days are a whirlwind of stories and experiences in my memory both too tender and too sad to recount right now, compounded by my mother's death two months later. But eventually, in the excitement of my new marriage, and a few months later, the news that we were expecting a baby in mid-December, my heart healed and things settled down.

There was so much to do. We had a condo to prettify and convert from a bachelor pad, we had a European trip to take, we had a new school to ease my older son into. But as last fall wore on, November 12 began to loom larger and larger for me. I didn't know what to expect on the anniversary of my father's death. I had had a year to reflect and distill some lessons, but it was still fresh and strange to be orphaned and without my parents, especially because their second grandchild was due soon and they wouldn't be there.

A couple of days before that somber anniversary, my husband and I spent the evening at an Argentine tango performance. Somewhere during the evening, I began to suspect my water had broken, five weeks early. I went home and went to sleep, only to wake up after midnight, sure now that my baby was coming, ready or not. We went to the hospital and I spent the next twenty-four hours in resigned labor. Grant arrived at one o'clock a.m. on November 12, a year to the day that my dad died.

It might be a coincidence that my baby showed up five weeks early on the anniversary of my dad's death. It might be.

I don't know about such things, but I suspect Grant was sent down with an embrace from his grandfather fresh around him, because my dad...he was still looking after me. He gave me a happy day on what could have been a forever sad one.

He lived a huge life, packed full of far more challenges and acheivements in his sixty years than most people ever dream of. And that's what I remember today, in between raining birthday kisses down on baby G to the point that he's beginning to crawl away when he sees me coming.

My father left baby G a gift, through me. I hope that some of the best parts of my father live in me still and that those are the things that I teach to my sons. The power and joy of words, fierce family loyalty, respect for my elders, the love of a well-told story, big smiles, hard work, and the unflagging advocacy of those that systems and institutions too often overlook.

This is not a sad day. But it's a good day to remember.

Is there a problem, officer?

This one time, I was bored of college so I decided to go live with my *Pawpaw for a semester because the food was a lot better at his house. The food is a lot better at any Louisiana house, to tell you the truth. Not that the BYU Cougareat didn't have its moments, but usually I just wandered through the bookstore and grabbed a bag of chips and a soda and pretended I was walking off the calories by eating them on the way to class.

After that semester was up (which involved me getting a huge room to myself, working part time, spending hours and hours reading books from the library and spending the rest of the time watching my pawpaw cook and then eating it so I don't really know why I went back to school, ever), my dad came to drive me back home to California and then send me back to school.

So we packed up my little Dodge Shadow and hit the highway, and somewhere on a Texas interstate, I woke from a sleep in the back seat to find my dad pulling over to the side of the road while cop lights bathed the car interior with a friendly red glow that said, "Gotcha, sucka."

"Melanie," my dad said. "I'll need you interpet."

He didn't. See, my dad was deaf. Actually captial D, Deaf. Any audiogram would show him as stone deaf. But his speech never gave him away. You'd only catch on if you saw his hearing aids. He had magical lip reading powers. He could function just fine in a conversation with anyone without an intepreter.

In fact, his deafness only seemed to manifest itself when he was about to get in trouble. Too bad my mom was deaf too or he could have pulled that on her more often.

So he did not need me to interpret, most definitely not from the back seat, and mind you, I was the WORST intepreter EVER. I have improved over the years to "pretty crappy."

But he reached up, turned his hearing aids off, and waited for the officer to come to the window. Then he made me sign everything the cop said into the rearview mirror. Then he would answer the cop, sounding confused. Then we would repeat. Then the cop wandered back to his cop car. Then he came back and said, "Tell your dad--" and when I started interpreting he said, "You don't have to sign this until I leave. Just tell your dad to slow down."

The dude didn't write the ticket becuase he didn't feel like waiting for the interpreting to catch up! And he walked off.

And my dad kept his vaguely confused expression in place until the cop was in his car. Then he switched his hearing aids back on, pulled back on to the highway, and smiled.

"I love being deaf," he said.

I think I said a swear.

*Pawpaw is what anyone in Louisiana calls their grandfather, because "grandpa" sounds weird, whatever you guys may think.

Oh, and Emily Lesher won the giveaway! You can read the post below for the details.

Happy Birthday, Sis.

Warning: if it's important to you to keep your high and worshipful regard for me, today's post is a good one to skip. Just saying.

So it's my sister's birthday and after thinking about it long and hard, I finally decided what to get the girl who doesn't have everything but she lives in a different state and adding postage to the cost of any present makes it way too expensive to send. Or not really, but I never get to the post office in time for anything. Ask the IRS.

But I thought of the perfect gift: a long overdue apology.

One time, when I came home from college for Christmas, my (younger by five years) sister was going out with some of her friends. I was particularly cranky that night for some reason, and when she came whipping around the corner of the hallway to grab something she forgot, she stepped on my bare foot.

"Ha, ha! Sorry about that!" she tossed over her shoulder on the way to her room. My former room. I followed her.

"That hurt. You need to apologize for real." Don't ask me what was wrong with me. I said I was cranky.

An eyeroll. "I did apologize."

"It wasn't sincere. Make it sincere."

Here's the part where I don't remember exactly what happened next but I'm sure she said something like "Make me" and I probably took her up on it because we ended up in a slap fight. Yeah, I was at least twenty years old and we were still in a slap fight. This happened a lot. The thing is, at some point, usually after thirty seconds, we would realize how stupid it was and start laughing and then we would get over whatever caused the slap fight in the first place.

Usually.

But that night, she busted up laughing and I was still mad. Because apparently I took my evil pills that night. So while she sat on her bed giggling, I blocked the door and said something really cool like, "You better quit smiling."

And I think she said, "Move. Everyone's waiting for me in the car."

And I said, "Too bad. You're still smiling and you still haven't apologized."

And she probably said, "Make me," again.

And for some reason, I totally lost it. And I punched her.

Right under the eye.

We slapped for years, and occasionally had on-the-floor headlock brawls. But we never punched, and we definitely never punched in the face.

Her hand flew up to cover the red welt that popped up, and after a second of shocked silence (where I admit I felt a little satisfaction because I'm a bad person), she ran to my dad in the livingroom and said, "Melanie punched me!" and pointed to her eye.

And because he was watching Star Trek: The Next Generation and because the accusations my brother and sister made that I was spoiled are totally true, my dad looked up distractedly at her bright pink welt and then over at me leaning defiantly against the wall, and then he said to my sister, "You probably shouldn't bother her."

Her mouth fell open, I laughed, and she stormed out.

So here's the apology: I totally shouldn't have laughed when he said that.

Happy Birthday.

Oh, yeah. And your Kiva gift certificate is in your email.

Gifts My Father Gave Me

Today is my dad's birthday. He would have been 63 but he died a month after his 61st birthday. In memory of him, I'm posting the talk I gave at his funeral. My mom wanted all of us kids to speak, so this is what I said. I've modified it a little. It's kind of long and you don't have to read it because it's really just about me and him. This is also one of those things that doesn't require seven comments (although you can talk if you want to) because today, it's not about that. It's about my dad, who I miss.

My dad was pretty bad at giving gifts. It’s probably why I looked forward to them so much. Where other girls might get pretty bits of jewelry or other things to spoil them, my presents all came from one of two places: an infomercial or the LA County Fair. He gave me kitchen choppers and desk organizers, plastic hooks for hanging things on my walls, planners, and gadgets galore. For my 30th birthday, I got caulking and insulation so I could weather proof my bedroom. And I loved every one of those dumb gifts because he picked them just for me. He really thought long and hard about every bit of hardware he ever wrapped up and gave to his girly girl daughter. He genuinely thought about what I would need and he would be so excited to give me each present.

I admit even I had to laugh over the caulking, but I might have loved that the best of anything because he did it because he loved me. I guess he could have caulked my room himself, or made my brother do it. Or more probably conned someone I was dating into doing it. But the next Saturday, I was on my knees on the concrete outside, learning how to caulk. And you know what? My room is warm and I don’t have to ever live in a cold room again because he taught me how to fix it.

That, of course, was his true gift. It’s why his badly wrapped presents were beside the point. I want to share with you some of the other gifts our father gave us. My whole life I’ve lived under the threat of losing him. He faced health struggles from the time he was not much younger than I am now. That’s his first gift: thirty years with him I never thought I’d have. And in those thirty years come his other gifts. When I first began to realize that this time, he really might not make it through, I dreaded how much it would hurt to lose him, how much I would miss him. I was afraid I would get a black hole in my stomach and I would just walk around, hurting, feeling a little lost, not knowing what to do next. It didn’t happen. Of course it didn’t happen. This is his next gift: I come from a household of faith. We have been taught by goodly parents. I am not lost: I know who I am. I am Wayne Bennett’s daughter. That means something. He is not lost. I know exactly where he is. He taught me that, too.

He taught us a love for our heritage. We honor those who have gone before us. He filled our childhood with stories of family members who already passed on, teaching us about them so we could keep that connection. One of my best friends is my Pawpaw, my dad’s father. That relationship, that love and respect I have for my grandfather….that’s another gift from my father.

He taught us kids to work hard. While the other kids in the neighborhood got to run around and play in each other’s yards, we were most likely to be found in one of my dad’s many gardens over the years, planting, weeding, or harvesting. This unintentionally produced three pint-sized Tom Sawyers….the neighborhood kids were fascinated by these chores and would beg to do them. I admit we often graciously granted them the opportunity. But the lesson still stuck with us. My brother and sister and I are workaholics, probably. But we can be counted on to get things done. Many times, I saw my father rise from bed, exhausted before he started and in a great deal of pain, to go about his business and see to his responsibilities. How could we do less?

Here’s another gift: advocacy. He taught us to stand for the things that are right, the right way. One of my proudest moments occurred during one of his recent hospital visits. I had come straight from work to check on him and discovered that he had not gotten the things he needed. I am my father’s daughter, so this would never do. I had a couple of polite but pointed conversations and the steady stream of hospital people began within minutes until everything was done. My brother or sister could easily have done the same because he taught us all the same thing: everyone, regardless of who they are, deserves to be treated fairly and you go to whoever you have to go to to make that happen. As the parade of medical staff began, he sat back and grinned, that delighted mischievous grin, and I hope it’s because he saw a little of himself in me. My dad was not one to easily relinquish control, but he had absolute faith that I, my brother or my sister, could take on anyone if need be to see that he got what he needed. The funny thing is, the nurses loved having him for a patient. I think it’s because he never complained. His requests were always for exactly what he needed and nothing more: he didn’t want their sympathy or pity, and what he got was their respect. This won us some odd perks: preferential treatment in the emergency room where they knew us by name and we never had to wait, arguments among the nurses over who got to take care of him on the floor, and as many guests as he wanted, regardless of visiting hours.

I’ll be 32 next month and I’m finally getting married. This, too, is a gift from my father. He waited a long time, to find exactly who he was looking for. Those of you who know my mother well understand exactly how wise he was. I saw what challenges can test a marriage as they struggled through his many illnesses together. I wouldn’t stop looking until I found what he did: his best friend and the person who would stand by him no matter what. My dad never put pressure on any of us to marry and I personally have driven three bishops in succession crazy as I remained single….but my dad understood. You can’t go through life with just anyone. His marriage to my mother, this bond that continues beyond death, is the reason it’s taken all of us kids so long to settle down. It’s a high standard: finding the person who will stand by you through anything, who will share your passions and support you in your dreams, the person you would do anything for. Don’t get my wrong, he was glad to finally see me marrying, but I think even more glad that I looked until I found the right person, just like he did. Some people have been sad that my dad won’t be there for my wedding. But I think this was his way of assuring he absolutely would be.

My dad gave us so many gifts: a strong sense of ourselves, the example of his faith, the courage to stand for what is right, a fierce sense of loyalty to family. It delighted him when any of us kids would unite against him on something because he was proud of that independence and our bond to each other even if it meant being on the other side of an argument from him. I think he was glad to see us thinking for ourselves. He taught us service to others: he threw our home wide open over the years to friends and family who needed a place to live until they were back on their feet. He gave us the gift of his faith. For years I struggled with my testimony and I went my own way for a long time. When I finally made the decision to figure it all out once and for all for myself, I did the things I had been taught. I read the Book of Mormon everyday and prayed to know if it was true. I couldn’t get an answer. I went to my dad and asked him what to do. He looked at me in astonishment. He asked, “Do you mean to tell me that after years of not having a testimony you’re trying to start by asking if the Book of Mormon is true?” I was surprised by the question, but more surprised by what came next. “Just stop,” he said. “Stop. The only thing I want you to do each night when you pray is ask your Heavenly Father if he loves you. Don’t do anything else until you know the answer to that.” It is the most profound piece of advice anyone has ever given me. He had a deep testimony of the scriptures, especially of the Book of Mormon, and he could have borne it. But he didn’t. His greatest testimony he had was of his Heavenly Father’s absolute awareness of his needs and desires and that’s what he sent me to find for myself.

He gave us the gift of unconditional love. Despite wrecked cars, speeding tickets, ditched school (that wasn’t me, by the way), broken curfews, and any other mistakes we might have made, he still loved us. He showed us this by teaching us about consequences and accountability. By 16, I pretty well figured out it just wasn’t worth breaking the rules any more. For example: do you know the natural consequence for hitting a parked car and not leaving a note? Your dad assigns you a five page parenthetically documented essay on your civic responsibility as a citizen in the instance of vehicle damage. (That also wasn’t me, by the way.) It was just easier to get grounded which is exactly why we didn’t get grounded much.

We loved my dad so much. We are so proud to say we are our father’s children. I hope all that was good in him lives on in me and that I teach it to my own children as well as he taught us. To Jamie he gave his determination and joy in working hard, to Amy Lou he gave fierce loyalty and unwavering faith, and to me he gave a strong mind and a passion for words and the power of education. To all of us, every one of us, he gave an example of living a Christ-centered life, friendship, and integrity. His body was so small when he passed on, but no one had a bigger heart, and it's an immeasurable loss.

But it's only temporary.