The Funeral Talk

My brothers, sisters and I spoke at my dad's funeral. I had 5 minutes. FIVE minutes. That is not very long. I wrote up a rough draft that was at least 15- and I didn't even put all my stories into it. I want to share my longer version here. I am going to put some pictures of him throughout. They won't necessarily match what I am writing. I just like those pictures.

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My patriarchal blessing says, “You have unusually sweet parents. Look to them for guidance, for in their counsel you will find wisdom.”  This is so true of both my parents. Of course I am going to focus on my dad today and how unusually sweet he was and how he taught us all by his words and actions.

My dad worked hard

My dad was a handyman. He could fix anything or build anything. He grew up working in an orchard so he learned how to work hard. I heard a lot of stories of how he would work so hard and then play hard down in the orchard. He said that he was a farmer who grew up to be a “farmer-cist”. As kids we were so happy when he built our fort in the backyard. It had a sandbox under it, a trap door and a slide exit. We used it for years. Every day he was not working, he had a list of things to fix or do.  If one of us mentioned something would be nice to have or something was broken, he put it on his list and got to it. He finished our basement to give us needed extra bedrooms and a room for my mom to teach preschool in. Once mom mentioned that the shed would be cute if it had a flower box under the window. He had one built for her as soon as he could. I could always call him and ask for help, and he would come running. As an adult he would come to our house and help us fix our stuff. When we were moving, we had a minor plumbing issue. Before we had time to deal with it, He came over, got the parts, and fixed it without us asking him. That is the kind of man he was. He didn’t just think about doing stuff, he did it and did it well. 

Being a pharmacist is demanding work. He was on his feet working 12 hour days. His pharmacies were always busy and he did not stop working. On his days off from the pharmacy, he did not rest, he had a lot of work to do. And he didn’t just work hard, he cared about these people that he worked with and served. Many people loved him and followed him from the different pharmacies that he worked at. Some would only get their prescriptions filled if he was working that day.

We had a big yard with lots of landscaping projects and there were always the household repairs that needed to be done. He put his full effort into these jobs so they could get done quickly. He had us work with him and taught us to work. He always did this the right way, never the lazy way. I remember him telling us a million times to use our elbow grease. Which meant try harder, push harder. Whenever he could, he would go to his parent’s house to help them with projects they had. My grandma wrote so many times, “What would we do without Steve?” He was a great example to me to be responsible and work hard. He loves his parents. 

My dad Persevered

With all that work I just mentioned, you would not think he had physical problems. Jeff mentioned a lot of his health issues. (Many food allergies as a child, calcium deficiency which lead to many broken bones, asthma, colitis, aortic dissection, arthritis, terrible feet problems, hearing loss.) These were hard for him because they stopped him from doing the things that he wanted to do. The last few years he had a lot of pain from every step he took. Yet my mom had to keep reminding him to rest or put his feet up. He did not stop. A few years ago after he had his colon removed, he was telling me that he could no longer take ibuprofen for his arthritis because it was bad for his stomach. I looked at him kind of shocked- “you have arthritis?” It turns out that for years and years his joints have been horribly painful. But he never complained or felt sorry for himself. He still did everything he wanted to do –including crawling and playing with his grandkids. He just worked through the pain. 

At the end of April, he was digging a trench in his yard to help with drainage even though he could hardly walk and really did not feel well. When we talked to him about stopping, He said, “I will work until I cannot work”.  He did not let the health things stop him. This month I drove my dad to his procedure that was supposed to really help him feel better. He had a lot of pain. No one knew that his gall bladder was infected. My dad had a high pain tolerance- he did not use Novocain when having a root canal. But he was hurting right before this procedure. On a scale from 1 to 10 for pain- he said he was at a 10. We started walking into the hospital. I wanted to get a wheel chair for him. He said, “I am able to walk. I will walk as long as I am able. I will not give up.” 

My dad was kind    

I have never known a kinder person. He was kind to everyone including people he did not know. And it didn’t matter the background of the person or the situation. He knew cars and if he saw someone with their hood up looking inside, he would go ask if he could help. 

When we were teenagers and driving cars he would go out in the mornings and warm up our cars and scrape the frost off the windshields. If he noticed that we were getting low on gas- he would just fill our cars for us. When I was collage age. I came home for a weekend. I was talking to Jill, a new 16 year old driver, and she didn’t know how to get gas for her car because dad just did it for her. I said that I needed gas so I would take her in the morning and show her how. We drove over to the gas station and I had Jill start pumping the gas. She said, “It isn’t working- it just keeps stopping.” I went to help her thinking, “how hard is it to squeeze the nozzle?” Well, sometime in the night my dad had filled up my gas tank. It was very awkward to write an 18 cent check for gas. It was how he showed love- he took care of us.

When I was a baby, I cried a lot. I have heard stories of how he would come home from work after a 12 hour shift and take me from my mom who had listened to the crying all day long. He would pace the house rocking and bouncing me for hours.

When I was in middle school, there was some kind of drama (that I do not remember) on the bus. I did not want to ride it. My dad drove me to school every day for the rest of the year. Just because he loved me.

My dad loves my mom

My dad was the most kind to my mom.  He taught us from the time we were young to treat her nicely no matter what. He loved whatever she cooked. Telling us that “of course it is good, she put her finger in it.” He took care of her every need and really cared if she was protected and cared for. We had a picture of sunflowers in a basket that hung in our living room for years. Last year when they were moving we found it. My dad said. “I love this painting because your mother painted it. I never wanted her to take it off of the wall”. He was always concerned with her happiness and did a lot of things for her to make sure she was loved and protected. He would drive her to her work whenever it was snowy and I often saw him doing the dishes and cleaning the house because she had to work that day and he did not. He loves my mother still.

My dad was fun.

He took his kids fun places. I watched Indiana Jones and Star Wars with my dad as a kid, he took us camping as a family, taught us how to fish and even taught me how to gut a fish (something gross that I will never forget). A favorite activity to do with my dad while camping was him teaching us to use an old shepherd’s slingshot.

He loved science fiction and fantasy books and movies. I have very vivid memories of watching Indiana Jones and Star Wars with my dad as a kid. And his love of movies continued until now. His kids and grandkids looked forward to movies that we could watch with him. He loved to go to the new Star Wars movies, The Hobbit movies, Harry Potter movies and more with us. It was a fun activity that his health did not affect.

He would read the books that my kids read so that he could talk to them about the stories they were reading.

He had funny words that he used that were just part of his language. They were part German, part French, part made up. But I thought they were regular words until I was older. He said “Oy Vey” all the time. We had “bumberchutes” at our house, he told us not to be a “panty-waist”, he was always “flustered”. He said “Wunderbar” all the time. And there are so many more.

He loved reading the comics in the paper. And he loved watching cartoons like Scooby Doo as he ate his cereal for breakfast. He loved peanut butter, lemon, and any kind of pie.

Because my dad worked such long shifts, and was gone many evenings until after 9:00 at night, he had random days off of work. So he was often home during the day when we were. So we had him around for many activities that some dads couldn’t do. My mom always made us peach shakes when we got home on the first day of school. When she started teaching school, my dad started making them for all of us. 

When I was really young, my parents decided to do little activities with us just one on one. I was three and chose to ride the bus with my dad downtown. This really was the highlight of my life for many years and I talked about it always. I still have memories of waiting at a bus stop and my dad realizing that we had time to get ice cream cones for us before the bus came.

Growing up, dad was our photographer. We have a lot of pictures of our childhood because he took a lot. He loved taking pictures. I took a photography class in high school when cameras had film, apertures, and f-stops. He taught me how to use his camera and a lot of the things that he knew. He loved to teach us to drive. Before we were 16, he would take us out to the middle of nowhere and teach us on dirt roads. When we were on real roads, he taught us how to be defensive drivers. He used the word “rubbernecking” to describe what you should be like in a parking lot. You should be looking in all directions- your neck should be like rubber. He was patient with other drivers. Instead of yelling, when a car in front of him would not go once the light turned green (loud enough for those in our car to hear- but not anyone else), “Is there a particular shade of green you are looking for?”

My dad was prepared for every situation. He always had things that we needed. He always had a handkerchief (that he called a hanky), clippers, change for gumball machines with him at all times.  He always had a first aid kit when we needed one. Once we were on a hike while camping. I fell and hit my shin on a sharp rock. He said that if we were not an hour walk away from our camp and 3 hours away from a hospital he would have taken me to get stitches. But he had all the first aid supplies needed right there and helped me. I was fine. He also had any tool you would need for any project.

My dad was Knowledgeable

My dad loved being a pharmacist. Whenever I was sick or my kids were sick, or my neighbor had weird symptoms, I could call him and he would tell me what kind of medications would help, how much to take, and a lot of times he would have some kind of tips or pointers that he picked up. It was like having my own personal doctor. When I was a teenager he worked at Dan’s Pharmacy that was a 5 minute walk from my house. I would go over to the store all the time just to say hi. Sometimes he would let me in the pharmacy and I would sit on a stool out of the way and just talk to him for 10 minutes as he worked. I could see how he cared for people, how hard he worked, and how much he knew about all the medicines. One time on my mission I was sick and could not shake it for weeks. I called the mission president’s wife to talk about it. She asked me what I would do if I was home. I said, “I would call my dad. He knows everything.” She let me call him. He was able to give me the proper name for the medications not just the brand names so that I could go to the doctor and ask for the things that had worked for me in the past.

My dad loved to read about anything. He always had a stack of books and magazines nearby and he was constantly learning. He loved history, and reading the National Geographic. When he had teenagers, many nights he would stay up late reading so that he could talk to us when we got home. He also had a lot of life experiences that he wanted us to learn from also. He shared stories from his life and others, and teach us the morals form those stories. He was always teaching us. For example: If I asked him a simple question like, “what is diesel gas?” I would get the history of car engines, how to process petroleum, why diesel engines work the way they do, and then answer my question. So I know a lot of random things just by talking to him. 

My dad was a grandpa too

When dad became a grandpa- he always wanted to hold the babies. He always wanted to take them during family parties so that we could visit with each other. When he would visit our wards, he always took the babies and toddlers so we could pay attention for a change. He always had jelly beans in his pocket to give to the older kids. 

When I had toddlers and I needed a babysitter, I could ask my dad to watch them and if he could- he would jump at the chance. My toddlers loved playing with grandpa. This took a lot of pressure off of me as a stressed out mom because I knew he was there for me. Not only did he babysit them. He would play with them. I would come back to get them and find him lying on the floor with the train set out and Cheerios as the train cargo, and my little boys as happy as could be.

I asked my kids some of their favorite memories about grandpa, these are some of their answers: Everything!  Fishing. He would play Legos with us. When he helped me do my archery merit badge. He liked to teach us things. Raking and playing in the leaves. He would teach us about stuff, like about his old tools and how to use them. Playing in the sandbox with him. When we would sleep over at his house, he would always play monopoly with us. I liked doing leather work with him. Him teaching me how to drive. Having conversations about everything. He would tell me interesting things and ask me what I thought about things, he would listen to me.

My dad had a personal relationship with each grandchild.

He was a Spiritual man 

His body was not strong, but his mind and testimony were. He knew his Heavenly Father and his Savior. He was a great example because he lived what he believed. He believed in our Savior and did everything he could to be like Him. He has left a legacy for us to follow. He loved reading the scriptures and other things about the gospel.  He bore his testimony to us in his everyday conversations. He would find deep spiritual meaning in everything around him.  He loved being in nature and would always talk about how grateful he was for God’s creations

We had a lot of discussions about the meaning of life and how even though bad things happen, goodness will always prevail over evil. These discussions were often based around Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, or Star Wars. He would find spiritual discussions in everyday life.

He loved to share his thoughts with us, often printing out spiritual thoughts, church talks, or stories and giving them to us. It was always fun to get those and read interesting things that strengthened my testimony.

There is a scripture in the book of Mormon that talks about Moroni and what a good person he was. This reminds me of my dad. I want to change Moroni’s name for just a minute.  Alma 48:17…  “if all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Stephen, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the devil would never have power over the hearts of the children of men.”

My dad was so sweet to all of us, complimenting everything we would do and encouraging us to do better. I know that he will continue to support us and that we will be together again. In the name of Jesus Christ amen.