It really happened

My dad died last week. My dad, died last week. What a horrible sentence. I still have moments where I don't believe that it happened. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer back in 2005. He had a pretty good handle on it until the cancer metastasized to his bones. A tender mercy that I received is that we lived out of state. I didn't watch him get worse and worse. The memories that I have of him are when he could still walk and talk and be himself. When I think of my dad the first thing that comes to mind is missionary work. He loves the gospel and loves to share it with people. My younger brother works for Delta and so my parents were able to fly all over the world. My dad always took pass along cards or the Book of Mormon with him to give to people. In his mind there was no such thing as a language barrier. He would talk to people in English no matter what language they spoke and I don't think it ever crossed his mind that there would be a chance that they wouldn't have a clue what he was saying. He didn't care if the person he wanted to give a copy of the Book of Mormon to was a very heavily armed Israeli soldier or someone on a subway. He just loved the gospel and knew the power it has to change lives. He also loves his family. I remember the first time I saw true fear in his eyes. He worked on a church welfare farm and once in awhile he would let me go with him to the farm. He had an old truck that he used on the farm. It smelled like hay and dust and the fabric on the seats was kind of itchy, but I loved that white truck! I think I was about four and I was with him on the farm. I told him that I needed to go potty so he took me to the office and told me that he would be down loading feed into the trucks so we could go feed the cows. I told him ok and he left. I used the bathroom and walked down to where I knew he loaded the big truck with the feed. He wasn't there. Instead of looking for him I decided that I would just walk home. I don't really know how long the walk from the farm to our house was but I want to guess that it was about half a mile. I walked down the long gravel road that lead from the farm to the main road, turned left and started walking. I remember being small enough that when a normal sized truck passed me, my head was shorter than the middle of the truck door. I had made it to the corner that was just down the road from our house when a car stopped and asked if I wanted a ride. I said sure and climbed onto the lady's lap. I remember her being a grandma but to a four year old, everyone is a grandma. They asked where I lived and I told them it was the red brick house on the corner. They drove me home and dropped me off. I was playing with a barbie on the kitchen floor a little while later when my dad burst through the door and sprinted up the stairs. As he rounded the corner into the kitchen he yelled, "Is Trudy here?!" I looked up at him as he came into the kitchen and said yes. I will never ever forget the look in his eyes as he scooped me up into a hug. It was true fear. He set me down and told me that he didn't know where I had gone and he had been really scared. I told him that I couldn't find him and so I walked home. He made sure I was ok and then left, still a little rattled, to go back to the farm. Of course being so little I didn't understand the fear he must have felt. Now that I have kids and there have been moments in all three of their lives that I couldn't find them either because they wondered off or I didn't realize they were standing right behind me so I couldn't see them, I understand the panic and worry that he must have been going through. He loved to spend time with us. I love that because of his financial situation, simplicity in life was a necessity. One of our favorite things to do was to go walk around stores. Especially the grand opening of a store. We never bought anything at these stores, just walked around and looked at everything. We also loved to walk along the Provo river trail. Once in awhile the blackberry bushes would have ripe berries on them and we would pick the berries and eat them. As we walked along the trail my dad would grab the hand of whoever was next to him and start skipping. Pretty soon there was a line of Kent's skipping along the trail. If we were really lucky, after our walk we would go to Macey's grocery store and get an ice cream cone. Even if we didn't get ice cream, we all loved going on a walk. My dad had put a swing on one of the huge trees in our yard and I loved when he would come outside and push me on the swing. My older brothers loved baseball and had worn a diamond into the grass of our yard. Sometimes dad would play baseball with us and stop during the game to push someone on the swing and then come back and play baseball until someone else asked for a push on the swing. I love knowing that my dad loved his kids and cherished my mom. There were a lot of nights that he would walk into the living room to where my mom was sitting in her chair reading. Dad would take mom by the hand and pull her to her feet. He would turn on the music and would dance with her. I don't remember a time that my dad didn't kiss my mom when he greeted her. He may not have agreed with her all the time, but I'll never know if he didn't because he never undermined her. If we asked mom something and didn't like her answer and asked dad the same thing he would say something like, "What did mumma say?" or, "Listen to mumma." When he was talking to us about her, he always called her mumma. He never called mom by her first name. She was always referred to as honey or sweetheart. He opened her car door as she got in and he wanted her to stay in the car until he walked around and opened it for her when we got to wherever it was we were going. My dad was not a yeller. I don't remember him ever raising his voice at me or anyone else. You knew if he wasn't happy with you because he would raise his arms to the side, shake his head, sigh and walk away. I hated that! I always felt like I was an inch tall and hated that I had disappointed him. My dad was mostly happy and at the end of a good laugh, as his smile was fading he would say,"so." If you know him you know exactly what I'm talking about. My dad is such a good guy and had about one million cheesy jokes. Once in awhile one of us would tell him an inappropriate joke and if my mom was around he would try to hide his smile, but he couldn't always do it. Sometimes he would pull us aside to tell us a joke that he knew that my mom would not approve of. Even if you didn't like the joke, you liked that dad had this secret side of him so you laughed anyway. He loved to walk up to strangers, especially little kids and ask them if they knew they had 11 fingers. Of course they would look at him weird and then look down at their hands. He would have them put their hands out in front of them and would count the five fingers on one hand. Then on the other hand he would count backwards from ten. So, it sounded like this,"one, two, three, four, five, ten, nine, eight, seven, six. Six plus five is 11 so, you must have 11 fingers!" Everyone loved that one. He could take off his fingers and he could turn his arm to rubber and stretch it so that when he stood a few inches away from a wall, he could pull on his arm until it stretched to touch the wall without moving his feet. He loved to tell his grand kids that his  teeth were like stars, they came out at night. He was the best fe-fi-fo-fummer in the world. I can hear him saying it in my mind and to this day it still fills me with anxious excitement. It makes me want to run to my bed and pull the covers up over my head. I love him so much and can't believe that he's really gone. I can imagine him in heaven walking around talking to everyone and being a powerhouse missionary. My heart breaks for my mom and the years that she has ahead of her. I am so thankful for the gospel and that I know that I'll see my dad again. I am so happy for him to be out of pain and to be healthy again. I miss him a lot and to be at my mom's house and not see dad there didn't feel right. I know time will make us all get used to the idea that he's gone, but right now it hurts pretty bad. I am so thankful for all that he taught me and I'm so thankful that I get to call this giant of a man my dad.