My daddy-o

My dad's the one on the left in the sunglasses.

My dad passed away on Sunday evening. A big part of me didn't want to really post anything or talk about it to anyone - most of my family posted things on facebook about it, but I didn't - I think because his death was so expected and made it so he could get up and start doing things again, that I feel like if I put something on facebook or told people about it, they'd be sadder than me and I don't want that. I don't think my dad wants us to be sad about his passing and I don't want to tell people because I think it'll bring them down.
For those who didn't know my dad, he was a dentist in Arizona and was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 1985. In simple terms, MS puts scar tissue along the spinal cord and makes it difficult for electric impulses to go from the brain to the different body parts. There are different types of MS - my dad had the type that was degenerative and at the time, there was nothing anyone could do about it but let it take over. As the disease affects the body, it usually starts in the legs and the legs stop working, then moves up to the arms and hands and eventually makes it so the brain can't get anything to anywhere in the body. By 1988 the doctor told him to quit practicing dentistry or he'd be hit with a malpractice suit before long, so he quit, sent my oldest brother on his mission, packed the 9 kids left up and we moved to Utah so he could teach and attend BYU. He taught in the religion department for about 5 years, then couldn't walk and felt like he couldn't teach the way he wanted to if he couldn't stand, so he quit teaching and became a student. He got a PhD in Childhood Education minoring in Church History when I was 16. By this time he had a difficult time being out of bed and his arms shook so much there wasn't much he could do, so he started writing a book about Church History with my mom and my help. He has a photographic memory, or a very very good memory, and has hundreds of books, so he would tell me or my mom what book to get, where in the book the quote he wanted and what to do with it. While we were writing this, he would tell me how much he looked forward to meeting Joseph Smith and helping him do the work he's doing now in heaven. He showed me this quote from Wilford Woodruff -

“Joseph Smith continued visiting myself and others up to a certain time, and then it stopped. The last time I saw him was in heaven. In the night vision I saw him at the door of the temple in heaven. He came to me and spoke to me. He said he could not stop to talk with me because he was in a hurry. … I met half a dozen brethren who had held positions on earth, and none of them could stop to talk with me because they were in a hurry. I was much astonished. By and by I saw the Prophet again and I got the privilege of asking him a question.

“ ‘Now,’ I said, ‘I want to know why you are in a hurry. I have been in a hurry all my life; but I expected my hurry would be over when I got into the kingdom of heaven, if I ever did.’

“Joseph said, ‘I will tell you, Brother Woodruff. Every dispensation that has had the priesthood on the earth and has gone to the celestial kingdom has had a certain amount of work to do to prepare to go to the earth with the Savior when he goes to reign on the earth. Each dispensation has had ample time to do this work. We have not. We are the last dispensation, and so much work has to be done, and we need to be in a hurry in order to accomplish it.’ ” (Discourses of Wilford Woodruff, pp. 288–89.)

I think the thought of working along side Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and the others excited him and he wanted to go help. This was about 8 years ago that we talked about this. For the past five years, my dad has been in and out of the hospital with pneumonia and had gotten weaker and weaker, to the point that the last two months he's been on a breathing machine almost 24 hours a day. The last week of his life his heart rate slowed down each day until it stopped Sunday evening.

Although the reasons why my dad had to go through what he did aren't entirely clear and I know I don't know all of them, I know part of it was for us, to learn how to put things in perspective and be grateful for what we have. As his health deteriorated, especially in these last few months, I think a part of it also was he needed to be 100% ready to leave his body and start working. I think there's a lot of work that the Lord needs him to do specifically and his spirit needed to finish preparing here so he could go right into what needed to be done.

Because my dad got hit with the disease when I was so young, I've gotten used to having him in the house all the time. Whenever I was bored or lonely I could go in his room and hang out, watch tv or talk to him. Not having him here will take some getting used to, but the image of him walking in heaven, finally being able to work and stay busy, and knowing how long he waited so he could do that, well, I can't stay sad.