Gifts from Dad

Let me tell you about my dad.

While my mother was growing up west of 5300 South, in smelter homes behind what would become the future site for Murray High School, Dad was growing up in a charming little house just off State Street on 48th South. His mother moved back in with her parents after divorcing my grandfather; my dad was only 5 or 6 years old.

My grandmother's parents helped with her children so she could go back to work to provide for them. They had recently moved into their own apartment for the first time when my dad was nearly finished with high school; in February of his senior year, she was killed in a car accident.

Dad left for a mission to Alberta, Canada in 1950, the year after he finished high school. He and Mom were great friends from 7th grade on. They met on registration day for high school. As they stood in line together, Dad confidently announced to Mom that he had a $100 to register for 7th grade. This was 1943, so naturally, Mom rolled her eyes. She had to laugh when she saw that Dad had carefully folded a $10 bill to make the last '0' on the far right side of the bill perfectly align with the '10' on the left.

They often sat by each other in classes but never dated. It wasn't till Dad saw her for the first time after his mission in 1952 - at a stake conference - that he came just short of stalking her for three days until he had to leave for the army. What a lovely serendipitous thing for Mom to send Dad a Christmas card a few months later; they wrote the rest of the time he was in Korea. He got home in November of 1954 and they married 7 months later.

Dad loved music when he listened to his mother play practically anything she could hear, but he couldn't be bothered with music lessons. But when he asked me to play the piano for him, he always sat so he could watch my hands. That was his favorite thing about watching his mother play.

My grandmother read to Dad almost every single night, and just like old radio serials, loved to find a dramatic place to stop for bedtime. He loved books the way he loved oxygen: instinctively and for survival. It wasn't the books themselves so much as the beauty and truth that was in them.

Tonight, I gave Dad his Father's Day present with a similar piano repertoire to Mom's Mother's Day present six weeks ago. As on Mother's Day - I was heading upstairs for bed and realized I hadn't given him his Father's Day present - a little concert.

I taught Sunday School today a bit on the fly - got the schedule mixed up and only realized I was in the docket last night. When I think of how I've learned to study in such a way that this didn't cause the panic attack it would have even a few years ago, I have to thank Dad.

If my love of the beauty and truth in music came from Mom, my love of the beauty and truth in words came from Dad. Both of them, really - they were such an inseparable team. But I attribute my love of music to my mother, and my love of words to my father.

Music is for expressing the inexpressible, but words are most often the way truth and beauty are expressed. The Word - Logos - the source of both (see John 1:1). No wonder my love for music and words are so linked.

Dad's the one who sprawled out on the floor with me - my notebook and pencil in hand - and patiently asked me questions and waited for my answers, instructing me to write them down. Those answers became rudimentary outlines for church talks or school papers.

Dad shaped my voice in a nearly subliminal way. How was I to know that truth and beauty went together? But by Dad's reactions to both, I grew up knowing that they were. He savored both - and because he had a true education, he had the ability to articulate what made something true - what made it beautiful.

My love of truth and beauty catch in my throat because I watched them catch in my dad's.

As I finished my concert, I turned to the empty couch where Mom and Dad used to sit when I played for them. I blew them a kiss and told them I loved them. What an investment they made in me - to make a home laboratory of learning and practice. Always the practice. How else do you become holy?

I'm grateful I learned who Jesus Christ was from two phenomenal humans who adored Him - who lived grand lives of ordinary imperfection with extraordinary consistency to covenants.

I can think of no finer legacy for a mama and daddy to leave their little girl.