What I actually said at the funeral, as best I can remember (the "Life Sketch")

I wrote this the morning after the funeral and then edited a tiny bit in the middle of church, that same day. Underneath my own talk, I also wrote what I remembered of what the bishop and stake president said. (Relevant to their remarks is the fact that they are bishop and stake president in a Polynesian ward and stake in Utah, where the funeral was held.)

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One of Dad's best gifts to me, especially at the end, was that he wanted people to be able to learn from the past, which you can't do if you don't know the bad stuff. I'm not going to focus on the bad stuff today, but if you are interested in learning from it, ask questions, observe, be open.

I look a lot more like my dad than my mom, and my personality is a lot like my Dad's, both for the good stuff and for the bad stuff. I like the scripture in Mormon chapter 9 that says "Condemn me not for my imperfection, neither condemn my father; but give thanks unto God that he has shown unto you our imperfections, that you may know how to do better than we have done."

I was listening to a BYU devotional the other day, and the speaker said that he had tried to give other talks, but that this was the one that he needed to give. And I thought, that has never happened to me, it then I thought, oh, nope, it has. Dad's life sketch. I keep feeling like I should compare him to Jesus Christ.

So. Here goes.

Number one: obscure birth near sheep. [Everyone laughed at this, which I had hoped they would.] I have a work colleague who doesn't think much of Southeast Idaho, and in fact I can almost hear them saying, "Can there any good come out of Southeast Idaho?"

Next, he defied his parents to go to a place of learning. He went to BYU, even though his parents wanted him to attend Idaho State University. He also went to the temple when he was fifteen, and that was where he learned to love landscape architecture. He loved the temple his whole life.

He also sacrificed. When I was two, I needed a medical test which required me to fast for twenty-four hours. Dad thought it was unfair to ask a two-year-old to fast for that long, so he fasted along with me, and prayed that he would feel my hunger. Every time he told that story, he said it was the hardest fast of his life*, but that I acted like I wasn't even hungry. I walked by a candy machine without even noticing it.

This reminds me of the scripture in Alma 13 that says that priesthood holders should be types of Christ.

He also learned as he went along. Dad liked to create, and learned how to take pretty good photographs. Jesus also learned and grew. The scriptures say that he needed not that any man should teach him, but they also say that he grew in wisdom and in stature. I remember the one story about Jesus healing the blind man, and he put the clay in his eyes, and asked if he could see, and when he couldn't yet, he tried something else. So, Jesus didn't know everything at first, and had to learn some things. This means that when someone needs to learn something, that doesn't necessarily mean they're bad, so just keep that in mind. 

They also performed practical miracles. One time, Dad was driving to California and kept having car troubles, and finally gave the car a blessing. When he got to California, my grandfather, his father-in-law, said he shouldn't have made it, and Dad didn't know if he meant he shouldn't have driven in a car that bad, or that it wasn't possible that a car in that state could have driven that far.

He also loved the islands of the sea. He always talked about how much he loved the Polynesian assemblies at BYU, and how they were his favorite assemblies. He especially loved New Zealand, but he never did get to travel there. I was talking to friends about this, and he did get Maori grandchildren, and we figured that this was probably better. [This also got a laugh, which I was pleased about.]

His own father died when Dad was in his early thirties, and he was sad about that for the rest of his life, I believe. When he had his major stroke seven years ago, I believe-- and I am not the only one who believes this-- that he had a choice about whether to stay or to go, and that he chose to come back so that we would have a chance to say goodbye. So he stayed, and suffered, for seven more years, so that we could do that.

Dad was just exactly like Jesus Christ, except in this one thing: Jesus didn't have any of the bad parts, and through Jesus, all of our bad and broken parts can be healed, and mended. And I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

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The bishop mentioned that Dad would talk to anyone. 

The stake president mentioned that when he was a high councilor, he had visited the ward maybe three times, and all three, he ended up talking to Dad. He said that the first time they talked about plants, and that the second time, they talked about how to keep plants alive.

He said that Dad would talk to anyone, old or young, didn't care, and no matter their race. He said that in addition to the qualities I had mentioned, Dad had another Christlike quality, of humility. 

He also said that he had ancestors from Southeast Idaho, and that when the Lord puts someone in a place like that, it is for a reason. He said that the Lord often has a work for them to do, and that this work can take generations to accomplish. 

That made me ponder, and I have most certainly not finished pondering.

 

*For readers not familiar with fasting in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: if an adult (or youth) is physically able, they are supposed to fast once a month. This means that Dad presumably had quite a few as a basis for comparison.