Dad's Furneral Talk

Mom wanted all seven of her children to talk at dad's funeral. This is my talk.


Mama often said that when she and dad got married they only had two things in common: love of the Lord and love of each other. These were the two constants in our lives. One family home evening dad talked about this scripture: Jacob 2:7-8

7 And also it grieveth me that I must use so much boldness of speech concerning you, before your wives and your children, many of whose feelings are exceedingly tender and chaste and delicate before God, which thing is pleasing unto God;

8 And it supposeth me that they have come up hither to hear the pleasing word of God, yea, the word which healeth the wounded soul.

             Like Jacob.  Dad was always concerned his wife’s tender feelings and wouldn’t let us children be the cause of her wounded soul.  He loved and cherished her and we knew it. We never could get away with talking back to her or being disrespectful. That is the only time he got mad at us. Brett remembers dad throwing him down the stairs twice for sassing mom. Probably an exaggeration, but you get the idea.
            We children idolized dad. He was the fun parent. Poor mom was the boring stay at home parent that took care of the humdrum everyday things.  Sorry mom, it’s true. We got to do cool things with dad. We never realized what mom did behind the scenes to make dad so great.
Mom was taught by her mother who taught her that the needs of her husband should always come first. But that didn’t mean she was a door mat. One day after John and I were married mom spoke her mind about something and John said “so that’s where Jeanne gets it from”.
            Dad came home every day from the clinic for lunch and a nap. And mom, bless her heart made sure he had something to eat and took a nap with him. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I married for time and eternity, not for lunch. 
How mom got through medical school with 6 children and one on the way is beyond me. During most of their school years, mom wrote to her mother and step father, while they were on a mission to Hawaii where Grandpa Trump was doing sheet metal work for the temple grounds and Polynesian Cultural Center. One letter I read was dated May 23, 1961. In part she wrote:

This is a rough year and a good one to get over with. Bruce has enjoyed it so much altho (sic) the pressure kind of gets to you once in a while. We have been going around in circles lately. Did I tell you Brett fell off his trike and I had to have a stitch put in his head? Well, this was a few weeks ago and he is fine now but after that Jeanne came down with a strep throat about ten days ago and then last week Stacey came down with it and in the meantime Jayne had fallen down and just barely scraped her knee. I put a couple of band aids on it to protect it in case she fell down and I didn’t take it off until the next evening. It looked slightly inflamed then and by the next morning it was really infected. Bruce cleaned it out and said it was a staph infection. It seem to be getting worse so I called the doctor and had him call in some medicine for her so she was on oral medication and also a salve for her knee. Then----Last Saturday was cleanup day in the Village and Jeanne tripped over a trike and fell on a rake and split the skin on her knee. One of the rake tines went about two inches up into her leg and the doctor had to take four stiches in it to close the wound. He was cleaning it out with a syringe and it disappeared up the hole that the tine had left. We didn’t think it was too serious until he noticed that. It still needed attention but that type of wound is hard to heal. It seems to be healing beautifully tho (sic) and Bruce will take the stitches out Sunday. He wasn’t here when it happened and another medical student picked her up and looked at it. I was returning a ladder and heard her cry and when she didn’t stop I knew it was serious so I ran. I finally got ahold of Bruce at the hospital and he came right home. She had a pretty rough night that night but she is fine now and quite pleased that hers was even “worser than Jayne’s.” Roark came home from school yesterday with a good case of strep throat, but he is on the mend today so I think all is well with us now.

             Mom was so good about making things work so dad could do what he wanted and still include the family. Dad would say “Let’s do this” and mom would say, “OK, how can we make that work for the whole family.” 
          Dad loved camping and fishing and many vacations were spent in the mountains. Mom even made a week at Fish Lake doable for dad. She did get dad to compromise, so one year we went camping, the next year we went to the beach.
         Somehow between the two of them they made our family want to be with each other. Often we would turn down invitations from friends to do things with the family because the family was going to have more fun. This desire to be with our family has extended to the next generation. We have several pictures of dad hiking Mt Baldy in the Uintas with his grandchildren. I remember coming home on summer without John and going up to the Uintas with dad to hike Mt Baldy. Thomas couldn’t have been more than six or seven. I pushed and pushed the kids to keep up because I wanted them to be worthy of hiking with dad. He finally looked at me and said, “Back off, your kids are doing great.”
         I remember the last trips dad went with us. Rafting the Snake below Jackson, his last trip to Jayne’s beach house in Mexico, and Roark taking him canoeing at Mirror Lake when he was 82. It was then we realized that the dementia was taking him. The trips no longer lit up his eyes, and we only saw confusion.

            Still mom thought she could make things work for dad, help him relearn things his brain forgot. She tried so hard to heal his wounded mind and body. On our last visit to the care center the day before dad died, he was asleep in his room. He looked so small and worn. Mom sat in the chair by the bed and took his hand. His eyes opened and he grasped her hand. After a while, she leaned closer to him and said: “Bruce, you know I love you, but it’s OK. You can go now. Your mother and father are waiting for you, do you see them?” He nodded and closed his eyes. She sang “Have I Done Any Good in the World Today” and “High on a Mountain Top”, the two hymns we are singing today. They were his favorite hymns.  After a while we kissed him goodbye and left.

           Mom, thank you for helping dad be such a great dad. I learned how to be a wife and mother from you.