Dad

I enjoyed reading Tan’s post on Dad the other night. It made me also sad to realize that with Jewel no longer blogging we will not have the wonderful musical montage of Dad she does each year that I watch over and over again.(luckily I can still go back through your archives)--I found one you had made years previous and watched it at 2:30 am four times over…I was a puffy-faced, heavy headed mess after and rolled back into bed with a heavy heart just aching to be able to talk to him again—a most common feeling—with each success or sadness, feeling of uncertainty, happiness, overwhelmedness, loneliness, pride, excitement, insecurity, relief, embarrassment or joy (pretty much any emotion) I want to call him up to share it with him and I am always surprised and sad when I realize I no longer can. I often find myself holding onto the phone, having called my siblings but still feeling a void wondering who to call next only to realize that the only person I most really want to talk to is dad… He was my very best friend. I miss him for me soo much but the hardest part is missing him for my kids. As I watch my three little boys grow up, I can’t help but feel such strong regret and sadness for not having them know him the way I wish they could…to hear them call him Grandpa and see their faces light up as he showers them with his attention and love for them. He was the best Dad ever and yet an even better Grandpa. He lived and breathed for his grandkids and was the epitome of the ridiculously doting grandpa.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

(Thank you Jewel for letting me steal this video from your blog...And especially thank you for being our family photographer...You have captured so many wonderful pictures and memories of all of our families. Thank you for helping to preserve these memories)

Yesterday the boys were buzzing around me while I was working on something in the sewing room. Oscar pulled out an old family photo that was on top of a pile of pictures I had in a box…”Who’s him, who's him mom?”, Oscar said holding up the picture and pointing to dad. Although we have a picture of Dad on our piano in our family room and we have talked about him and looked at the picture a number of times for FHE, it hurt a little that Oscar didn’t know him…in a new photo, in new clothes he couldn't’t recognize him as well. I told him that that was my dad, his grandpa, and explained that he hasn’t met him yet because my dad died a long time ago when Chaim was just a baby…Chaim then asked…”When will he come alive again?” (Chaim seems to think that since Jesus was resurrected three days after He died, our loved ones will be resurrected in a likewise timely fashion…as though it is just a matter of days)...”Not for a long time” I said. As best as I could I tried to explain it to my two young boys. It made me wonder how my dad did it all those years ago. How he made it make sense to us when we were so young and mom died…I can never remember not knowing that we would see her again, and my dad always managed to keep her memory so fresh in our minds. Now as a parent I am realizing that I need to do the same for my children and I now have such gratitude that my dad did it for me as I realize the efforts it takes. I hope I can do the same for them. I want them to know what amazing grandparents they have and I know that even though they have passed they can still be such a powerful influence in their young lives just as my mom was in mine. I am so thankful for eternal families and for the blessings of the temple. I know that families are forever and this truth is the most pure and beautiful knowledge I have. I am so grateful for the peace and comfort and joy that the gospel is in my life and how it teaches and helps me with my eternal family.