The Little Things

There are so many BIG things that remind me of K, or memories about him, but it is the little things I hope the kids will remember too.

Tuesday was his favourite day of the week... why? 2 reasons. Garbage day, he was like a little kid getting so excited with the boys watching them pick up the garbage cans... and especially if they were really full that week. And also because it was Pay Day... and now the reason he liked Pay day is not what you would think. He would cash his check and get so excited because he would FILL his gas tank. He loved a full tank of gas.

He would try to make everything fun for the kids... We always had real trees, he hated the idea of a fake one, so each year when we went shopping for the tree, he would tell the kids to go hug as many trees as they could until they found one that hugged them back... when it hugged them back, that was the tree for us.

Now as much fun as he had picking the trees he hated the mundane task of putting the lights on the tree... but that was always dad's job in our house so I assumed he would do it for our first year in our own house. It was the first ans LAST year he put the lights on. I came home and he had only used 1 strand of lights and simply looped it over a couple branches across the front... since then it has been perfectionist me doing it.

Also in the car for long road trips, near the end the kids would be done... so K would make it a game to get through the last stretch. For Thanksgiving on our way to Arizona one year, the last 30 min. or so he told the kids we better start calling the turkeys So we would have one for dinner. For 30 min. He and the kids were screaming out the windows, "GOBBLE< GOBBLE< GOBBLE"

He hated people , especially his kids, to see him cry. He took a few years of dating and being married to let me see him cry. He always felt it was a sign of weakness... I would tell him it reminded me he was human... then he would snap with some joke about not being human and an android or something. But he was much more tender hearted then he ever let on.

As mentioned at the funeral, he let the girls paint his toenails... he thought it was funny, and they got a kick out of doing it. What you don't know is my tough girls were able to paint his toenails at his dressing. There was also a time when he let them paint his nails right before T's baptism... So when the bishop saw them he teased him about it, and even slipped and called him Sis. T.

He had jokes about everything, I think that is how he coped with things. When the blood bank he donated to regularly sent his blood to be tested, they are the ones who found the cancer. The Dr.s office who tested it called, and K thought it was a friend form the blood bank. The conversation went like this...

K: Hello
Nurse: Mr. T I am calling to schedule the removal of your testicles.
K: Ok, let me call my wife and get them out of her purse
long pause
Nurse: Mr. T this is serious
K: what?
Nurse: um... You don't know? Let me get the Dr.

He had a great love for Porter Rockwell, in fact he wrote college papers on him for utah history classes. We were suppose to go to a fire side on him the sunday after he passed. I think he always compared himself to him as a church member, rough around the edges, but a sincere faith in the gospel.

I have heard it over and over again that he was larger than life... but he would NEVER have thought that highly of himself, and would be shocked to see how many people thought that highly of him. I love him so much and can't believe how short my time with him was. I feel like there is so much I still need from him... that I will never have.