My daughter was helping me make spaghetti tonight and she wanted to break the noodles in half. Purist I am, I stopped her. And then it came back to me...
It was our favorite way to break in the new missionaries. Not new in the field, but new to us. My dad would order these 48" long spaghetti noodles from Portland. I remember the two-foot long box they arrived in. They were carefully curled in half at one end which made it just possible to ease them slowly into the rapidly boiling water and cook them whole. We never ate them whole except when we had the missionaries over for dinner. Watching the 19 and 20-year-olds try to keep their white shirts clean and politely lift their forks higher and higher trying to get to the end of the noodles seemed like great fun to us kids. It must've amused my dad, too.
His birthday was last Monday, January 22. Usually I make his favorite cake from scratch--spice cake with caramel frosting--and serve it to my kids so they will remember the grandfather they've never met. And I always tell them the same old story. How he would point across the room in order to distract us and then sneak our caramel frosting, which we had painstakingly saved for last, and eat it.
We fell for it every time.
I remember one year he got some great bonus at work. We had a choice: a boat or a swimming pool. We kids all voted for a pool. The neighbors had a pool. But my dad, in his wisdom, cast the most weighted vote and bought a boat. I think he knew that a boat would be a better way for him to take time away from work to be with his family. We made good memories together out on Fern Ridge in that boat.
Later, as my mom sold off many of our possessions and packed up the house to follow her daughters out to Utah, the boat went too. I think that's the only time I remember crying over a material possession. I knew it wasn't about the boat. It was about the memories.
His health took a turn for the worse the year I moved to Utah and started school at BYU. And in that self-absorbed and oblivious way of the typical college freshman, I never read enough between the lines of the letters from home. I didn't have a clue. It wasn't till he made the long drive out to Utah that next spring, to pick me up and visit his family and the ranch in Randolph, that I even noticed how thin he had become. Even then, I still had no idea what was coming.
By the end of June he was hospitalized with what we thought was ulcerative colitis. I vaguely remember talk of a procedure they would do and a possibility if it didn't go well that things wouldn't go well for him. I don't know what eventually means, but it sounds like a really long time.
But I was working two jobs and still too self-involved to really consider the possibilities. In any case they needed to keep him in the hospital for the rest of the week and build up his strength before they would do the procedure the next week. I do remember writing him a letter and promising to come see him at the hospital on Saturday--the first time I would have some time off. I think I still have that letter somewhere . . .
About 2:00 in the morning I remember being awakened by my mother with the news. He was gone.
I never got to say good-bye.
One brother punched a hole in the wall. Another brother kept everything inside until he bawled like a baby while watching the Lion King twelve years later. Grief worked its way out of six of us kids in different ways, I guess. I cried. I dreamt it was all a dream and he came back to us. I was mad at the world and all the people who loved me until a good friend of mine who was also grieving cared enough to tell me off one night. Tough love. He was right, of course and I came around. But I still have issues about saying good-bye.
"A cowboy with a heart." That's how the local newspaper columnist described him. And I'd never seen so many people at a funeral before. It was truly standing room only. People traveled from far and wide. As a kid you never stop to consider who your parents are outside of being your parents, but I learned a lot about my dad that day. About how he was a friend to everyone and how he had a reputation for treating people fairly. About how well he must have loved to become so loved by so many. People who were complete strangers to us showed up because they knew my dad considered them a friend.
The autopsy revealed it was cancer that took him from us. Cancer of the colon, the stomach and the liver, I believe. Back then the "C" word wasn't so common. But it always meant a death sentence. And we never knew. Later we would speculate over whether his doctor knew and told him and he wanted to spare us the pain, or whether he ever knew what hit him. Not that it matters now. But know you know why I take cancer diagnoses in my friends--even in people I don't know extremely well--a little personally.
It's only been recently that I can try to see it all from the perspective of my mother. I imagine watching the funeral procession from afar--seeing a 41-year-old widow file out of the chapel behind the casket. Followed by her six children--ages 19 to 11. Stricken with grief, yet still in shock from the loss. Surely wondering how she would be able to manage alone. Surely incapable of fathoming the effects of an entire life of loneliness.
Almost 25 years later the edges of the hurt have worn down. But simple moments like cooking spaghetti with my daughter can bring back the memories. Maybe I am more keenly aware because I recently turned 44, the age he was when he died. Somehow that makes him more real to me. Seeing myself this age and going through these stages of my children's lives makes him seem less distant.
At the same time, knowing I see things from the same time and space that he did when he was called home also makes his death seem more tragic. My seven-year-old tells me I cannot ever die before he does because he could not live without me. I know he could, but I'd rather he not worry about it. So I will share with him memories of the good times. Tell my daughter about four-foot long spaghetti. Bake birthday cake with caramel frosting.
And always remember to say "Bye, I love you."
