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I have adjusted everything on this devil contraption that masquerades itself as a chair to somewhat conform to my poor posture. It still bites and scratches at my back side like it was a disgruntled chihuahua. In my second attempt to finish what I have started here I shall try to endure another episode of its maniacal harassment.
My first memories of my dad are all sort of jumbled. I'm not sure chronologically which event pre-dates another. They are all sort of haphazardly filed in a certain era of my life. Brilliant flashes of time perfectly preserved in my head with no context or surrounding information. Like looking at a bunch of photo slides that are unlabeled. There are certain events that he told me about that I have no recollection of. When I was about 1 year old my family moved from Butte Montana to Farmington Utah. I don't remember anything of our Butte house. When we had lived in Farmington for a year or so, my dad ran for city council. He tells me he took me door to door with him asking for the people's votes. No memory of that. I remember playing at a friends house. I must have been 6 or 7. My friend's mom asked "Is your dad running for city council again?" I stood there absolutely confused. I had no idea he was on the city council. I stammered "Um... I... I think so?"
I remember him working long hours. Being gone early in the morning and coming home after it was dark. He also served in the bishopric and was constantly at church meetings, city meetings and work meetings. that is most likely why my earliest memories of him are so random. Time spent with him was probably intermittent.
He called me "little buddy" or sometimes "buddy" for short. Sunday nights I would sit on his lap and we would watch Nature on PBS. Don't tell the folks at KUED, or KBYU that this is one of my first memories. They will surely use my story on a pledge drive as an example to why you should contribute. Actually, if it gets more contributions, and they reach their goal sooner and that gets them to shut up and stop trying to guilt me (notice how I said "trying") into contributing. Then please do let them use my story. I remember he loved his back to be tickled and he would tell me to go get a hotwheels car and drive it on his back. 10 or 15 seconds into the exercise, which seemed like hours to me, I would say "Is that enough?" and he would wiggle his back and say "No, keep going" 10 seconds later I would urge again "Is that enough?" which he would say "No, keep going" When he finally grew weary of my requests he would say "OK". Sometimes he would give me a dime to rub his back with one of his parker pens that he always carried in his shirt pocket.
I remember riding in the Cadillac that he drove. I loved to climb in the back window and fall asleep. or lay across the hump on the floor in the back seat, feel the warmth from the engine and let the hum of the driveline whizzing thousands of RPMs, inches from my face separated by a thin piece of shaped sheet metal, lull me to sleep. Things were definitely different then. We never got hurt. If there was ever an accident, my mom would stick out her arm and prevent me from face planting into the dash. we were totally safe in those days. I don't know if my recollection serves me correct, but I remember dad pulling our trailer with the Cadillac... which was a company car. My siblings would have to confirm that memory.
I don't think it is custom anymore, but for a time, he was the ward clerk at church. The ward clerk would usually sit up on the stand at a desk on the left side of the chapel. I liked to go sit up on the stand with him and color. There was 2 wooden chairs up there and the top of the desk was completely impractical. it had a bumpy texture to it and it made my drawings look like I had Parkinson's disease. My dad was left handed and I almost wonder if they didn't ask him to be the ward clerk and sit up there so that everyone could be humored as they watched him write. Every south paw has their own technique for writing and he said he had developed his from writing with a quill pen and an ink well. For the most part his hand hovered above the paper and he hooked his hand around so that his wrist was almost directly above his pen tip. He had learned to write like that to avoid running his hand across the wet ink.
I remember camping in our Terry trailer. My uncle sold trailers and we actually drove to Washington to pick the trailer up from the factory. It's sole decoration was a Styrofoam pineapple that was ornamented with dozens of plastic beads that were threaded with pins and stuck into the Styrofoam. Then it had a plastic plume on top.
When we were camping I would awake to the smell of my dad cooking bacon and eggs outside on the metal griddle. I swear that was one of the best smells ever. They tasted just as good as they smelled. The eggs were crunchy on the perimeter, yet the yoke was still just soft enough that you could dip your toast into it. Bacon crunchy and never stringy. Steroids and preservatives must affect the flavor of bacon we have now, because it has been 15 years or more since I have had bacon and eggs as good as I remember them as a child.
I remember one time camping, my dad asked me "What do you want to do?" and I thrust my finger out and pointed to the tallest point I could see, a craggy out cropping of rocks on a peak and said "I want to hike there!" to which he smiled and said "OK, let's go." When you are small your whole perspective of dimensions is on a completely larger scale. I remember the peak looming some 20 miles or so over our heads. I had tossed out the idea sort of like you might say "I'm going to be an astronaut!" or "I'm going to start a business in my garage around these things called computers and then I will be a multi-billionaire and I will blow my nose on million dollar bills." When he said "Let's go" I gulped in surprise. It seemed to me like it took the better part of the week to get to the summit. In reality it probably took us an hour to get to the top of the small hill I was calling a summit.
When we got there we found a little spring trickling out of the base of the rocks. There were aspens and fir trees all around us. The aspen trees seemed to whisper gleefully in the sun and the leaves fluttered and sparkled in a cheerful wave. We drank from the spring and sat and admired the view. Then he said "Do you know what we do when we admire such beautiful scenes like this?" I said "Um, no?" What I was thinking was "We roll rocks down the mountain to see how far they roll? We pound our chests and make ape noises? I don't know." Then he said something that still surprises me today "We kneel down and thank our Heavenly Father" and so we both knelt down and he offered a prayer of gratitude that seemed like it was 15 minutes long, but in reality was probably 30 seconds. I remember opening my eyes during the prayer and watching a chipmunk burst out of an opening in the rocks clutching a cone and perch up on a small ledge. It looked around in the jittery over caffeinated way that chipmunks move and bite off pieces of cone and dropped them around him. At the final utterance -- "Amen" he darted back into the recesses of the rocks. After we drank one last time from the spring, we made our way back to camp. My mom was sitting in a camp chair reading a book by the fire, that had died out.
I remember lots of "Whisker kisses" where he would rub his whiskery cheek against mine. I remember lots gentleness, and feeling like my dad was proud of me and supportive and that I could do anything I wanted and he would back me up. I am the youngest of 8 children and 5 years separate me from my next oldest sibling. Looking back, I am sure I was spoiled. I remember feeling like anything I wanted to accomplish in life, I could do it. I felt safe and secure. I knew I was loved and my opportunities were countless. That I would always be backed up and supported. That summarizes how I remember feeling during the first era of my life.
My dad had a terrible temper. I don't know if I didn't notice or if I was protected that much, but I really had no clue he could get so angry. One day when I was about 6 I strolled out to the garage to see what dad was up to. He was working on the car. Things were not going so well. He completely shocked me when he turned around and threw a wrench as hard as he possibly could have at his work bench. sockets and wrenches sprayed all over the ground like shrapnel and he screamed "DAMNIT!" I slowly backed up to the door and slipped back out of the garage. When I returned back into the house I must have looked terrified. My mom immediately asked "What happened?" I said "Dad said 'DAMNIT' and threw his wrench" she pursed her lips and glanced toward the garage. Later that night when dad returned from the garage mom barked "Sterling tells me you have been using naughty words" He glanced over her shoulder at me and launched a scowl at me and somehow telepathically transported his words into my head, because I was certain I heard him say "Don't you ever come in here and tell your mother on me!" I learned not to tell on him and he learned to watch his language more around me. There was another time I was in the garage while he was working under the car. Something wasn't going his way again. Again he threw his wrench. It went skidding and clanging along the ground and smashed into the wall. He filled the silence that followed with "SON OF A..." and then realizing I was there and pausing to think about it, he blurted out the first thing that came to mind "SEAHORSE!" I learned that laughing at his tirades only fanned the flames of frustration, so in my head I gave him a hearty chuckle and a 10 on artistic execution and creative impromptu.
There is a website called www.thereifixedit.com I laugh every time I go there. because most of the "creative workmanship" seen is typical of his home repairs. He rarely took the time to do something correct. It is no wonder he had so many things to be upset about. I would be frustrated too. "I just fixed the water heater! Spent $150 for a new one, another $32 for duct tape and JB Weld to get it hooked up and now it's leaking!" "Damnit all to Hell" was his war cry that he would whoop when his tower of tapes and epoxies, and putties and wire would crumble in his hands. When I was younger I didn't think much about the idea of fixing a leaky radiator with a bottle of radiator repair. When that didn't work, watching him add another bottle and when that didn't work, adding a third bottle and when all of that plugged up and blocked up the ports for the cooling chambers in his engine. He solved that by pouring Drano in the radiator. Well, when that didn't work he had to drain his radiator, spilling it on himself and the driveway. When the Drano started to burn his skin he jumped up and muttered "Sonuvabitch!" and sprinted for the faucet so that he could wash the Drano off. Now he was soaked, burned, the rubber hoses were now ruined and needed to be replaced, the engine needed to be disassembled and all of the ports cleaned. The radiator wasn't fixed and he had spent all of that money and time on alternative methods.
I don't know why... she swallowed the fly. But now that I am older and can look back. I shake my head and wonder "Wh...wha...what was he thinking?" This wasn't an isolated case.
I remember him changing the oil and just draining the oil on the driveway without bothering to catch it in anything. He changed the oil in my sister's car. She started driving home and heard a terrible clattering under her hood. When she had it checked out, she found he had left a 3 foot pry bar under the hood. I still don't know what the pry bar was used for.
We had a leak in our roof so he would just get up there with a bucket of tar and start pouring it where he thought it was leaking.
we had a leak in our ceiling. It kept leaking after he tried to repair it. So he patched the ceiling with a panel held in place by Velcro so that he could get to the leak faster.
Another time my sister was having a party at the house and we had a leak in the wall. The girls were watching a horror movie. My dad was working on the leak on the opposite side of the wall from the living room where they were watching TV. Most people would use a utility knife, or a punch saw. Maybe try to keep quiet to not disturb the girls watching TV. No, he fired up the chain saw and cut a hole in the wall with that. Scared the Hell out of the girls watching the horror show. Then he was mad because they were screaming.
I could go on and on here. It is getting late and I need to get on with this. to spare you the details, just go to thereifixedit.com and see the genre of work he was in to.
It got to the point where he was in such a foul temper all of the time that I hated to be around him. As soon as he came home I went to my room. When he left I would emerge with a sigh of relief. Possibly the most irritating trait was to see him put on his public face. At home he was "grumble grumble" step outside and he was laughs and jokes and hand shakes and pats on the backs. Step back inside, kick the dog and "Damnit to hell". People would tell me all of the time how great my dad was. I am sure they were surprised when I simply replied with a careless "Hmm".
When I was 16 my parents divorced. People would often pull me aside with a concerned look on their face "You doing OK? You need to talk? Can I do anything for you?" To be honest, I was doing great. I didn't have to hide in my room anymore. I was enjoying the freedom of having my own car. I didn't however, like the special attention I was getting from people. I didn't like the feeling I had that I was from a broken home. I wasn't sure if there was hall I was supposed to hang out in. If there was a club of kids at school that I was supposed to join, who all went home to cold and empty homes. waited for their moms to come home exhausted from another long day at work. Listened to their mothers cry themselves to sleep every night. It seemed like the world was full of happy people that came from healthy homes and they were all normal. That part sucked, everything else seemed great.
I made it through high school. Life evened out and I figured out that every one else has just as many problems as I do. Nobody is normal. If you can show me someone normal, then I will show you someone you don't know very well.
I also learned something else very quickly about my dad. I could be angry at him. I could pick him apart so easily. I would feel so justified in loathing him. Hanging on to that bitterness would be so sweet... if I wanted. I could also jump into the bear cage at the zoo if I wanted. Only I think the bears would tear you apart just a bit slower than hanging on to the bitterness would. Be angry only as long as you need to be, then let that son of a seahorse go!
For the rest of his life I could only take enough of my dad until he started to put away the public face and then emotionally I withdrew back to my room.
This last October I had the opportunity to go elk hunting with my dad. Shawn (my next oldest brother) agreed to go along. He does not live in Utah and didn't want to have to get an out of state license. He agreed to come along and cook and clean make the hunt a overall more enjoyable experience.
From the moment I agreed to go, I felt excited about it. Something felt different and I was like a little kid waiting for Christmas to come. I had the dates wrong in my head and we actually showed up for the hunt a day early. My dad seemed more relaxed and at peace with the world than I ever remember him. He seemed more interested in talking with us rather than just telling us what he thinks.
The night we all arrived we talked late into the night like a group of old friends would. In the morning my dad and I drove around, looked at places we might like to go hunt in the morning and we drove down to a gun range off the side of the freeway just outside of the closest town. There were several other people there sighting in their guns. On a normal occasion, dad would have been hovering over my shoulder banging on my scope with a rock and calling it a "Stupid son of a gun" and for once, his slander would be more accurate than slanderous. I was totally surprised when he sat back by his truck with his binoculars and watched the target I was shooting at. He stood back and let me do what I knew how to do. When I was all done and we got in the truck, he simply said. "Well that was easy! And your groupings were excellent." verbally and non-verbally he had let me know that I was trusted. I was doing a good job and once again I felt supported and backed up by whatever I was doing.
The following morning we went out hunting. I hiked along the back side of one of the mountains and met him on the point of the mountain where it spreads out into a long valley that races up between two horizontal mountain ranges. A river trickles through the valley and hugs the edge of the range furthest from where we were hunting. The river is shrouded by thick stands of Aspens. By this time of year the aspens had changed to a brilliant palette of red and yellow. the leaves in their waning days still flutter and wave, but their stems are more stiff and when the wind blows they seem to crackle more than whisper. Instead of waving their movement changes to that of a nod.
I met dad where he was waiting for me in his truck. He was listening to General Conference and he told me he didn't want to walk far from the truck because his chest was hurting. That was the first time I had heard anything about his heart problems.
He drove out over a ridge and we sat there glassing the fields below us for any elk that might be moving for the safety of the thick pines behind us. We sat there listening to conference. I watched a rabbit bounce from behind a sage brush, nibble on some grass. Then it stood up holding perfectly still, testing the air with its nose. Satisfied that there was no threats around it bounced and disappeared behind another sage brush.
When we returned back to camp dad asked me what I wanted to do. I knew what he was thinking and it was what I was thinking too. There were so many hunters out there that any elk still in that country was now dead or in an area so gnarly, you would wish yourself dead before you got the elk out. So, we spent the rest of our time talking, eating, napping and listening to the BYU USU football game. In the morning we broke down camp and went home. That was the last I saw my dad as he normally would be.
A few weeks later I received a phone call from my sister Heidi. Dad was going in for open heart surgery in the morning. Mandy told me I had better call him that she didn't think he was going to make it out of this. I didn't call. I figured he would want his rest more than a call from me. Besides, I hate talking on the phone.
Things didn't go well. 11 hours in surgery. 8 bypasses and he arrested several times in surgery. My sister Lori was incredible through the whole ordeal. She made it up to the hospital every night with only two exceptions, to visit him and then she posted his status and any developments in a blog for all of us to read.
The first time I went to see him, I was scared, I didn't want to go. I think I went more for Lori than for myself or for dad. Although I did get light headed, it wasn't as bad as I had imagined.
On November 14th I went to see dad. I walked in the room and announced that I was there. He didn't open his eyes but his left hand bounced up and fluttered a cheerful wave. Mandy and I talked to him and he would try so hard to open his eyes and focus on us. The best he could do was nod. "Are you tired?" nod. "Are you in pain?" head shake. "Love you dad, get better" nod. Something changed in me that day. Seeing him like that. Completely submissive. I can't put it any better than Lori did. in her blog:
"I know it has been a journey to our family's heart. Our hearts have all had at least 8 bypasses on them as well. In the end, our hearts have grown, healed, loved, shared, and rejoiced. Our hearts have been knit together in love for our Father and for each other. Our Father went in for surgery, but we were the ones who were saved.
This journey has been a sweet experience for me. Heavenly Father gave me 6 beautiful weeks to hold my Dad's hand, to tell him everyday how much I love him and to learn of the inner strength of the man that I call Dad. I was able to look into his eyes when he could not speak and see a beautiful and strong spirit. I came to love him in a way that wouldn't have been possible without this journey. I was able to read him letters from his loved ones, and see the love radiate from him. He taught me more in the past 6 weeks than was ever possible in normal circumstances, all without uttering a word.
I have a new hero in my book. Dad I love you more than words can ever express. I know you are near us. I feel your sweet spirit and your strength. I know you are rejoicing with those that you have missed for so many years. I know that when I see you again, you will have lots of great stories for me. I look forward to that day Dad. Thank you for being MY Dad. I will still need you from time to time, so don't go too far."
There Lori, I hope you are satisfied. I can't say that I didn't cry now.
Now it is well into December. When I look out over a grove of aspens it is now silent. the branches are stark and cold. There is usually a stream nearby carrying the flutters and whispers away. The trees stand dormant and empty. However, it is still easy for me to imagine -- and I look forward to next spring when the rain will bring back the vibrant hues and sparkling contrast of the shimmering leaves. and I can lay down in the grass and listen to the leaves and watch them drift.
