My Last Father’s Day with My Dad

It must have been close to midnight when Dad knocked on the door of the Stubbs’ bunkhouse where Jim and I and some other family members had gathered. The unbelievable, the unthinkable had happened. Our daughter Rachel had been killed instantly in a car crash just west of Salt Lake City. We had been celebrating my dad’s birthday at a family reunion at Lake Mead and Boulder City, Nevada. The spot was chosen to honor him since he had spent many years serving there, both as bishop and a teacher at the high school. It was hot and miserable in the motel at Lake Mead where Dad was staying, and he wasn’t feeling very well. He hadn’t told us, but the illness that would end with his death in early September was already taking its toll on his body. However, when we called and told him about Rachel’s accident, he quickly got out of bed and came up the winding road to Boulder City to comfort us as we prepared to head home to Utah.

Bert N Whitney on a desert outing

The plan was to spend the next morning, Father’s Day, at church meetings in Boulder City, celebrating our dad’s service there in the building he helped build so many years ago. Now, Jim and I were traveling through the night to meet with our children and grandchildren in Utah, while the rest of the extended family reunion went on without us. In those early hours of what would be his last Father’s Day, he gave both Jim and I father’s blessings that would carry us through the hard days and weeks ahead.

I remember and treasure so many blessings given me by my father. He was known in our family, and perhaps beyond, for his gift of healing. He served me and my family generously with that gift over the years. The parade of memories as I consider this includes the time Carl fell off the top of the slide in Logandale Park, when Rachel fell into the window well of their home, when my eyes needed healing, times at the reunions and precious private blessings in his home. I always expected the healings to be miraculous and speedy until one time during a blessing when he counseled me that growing older meant my body would be breaking down in ways that were long-term and persistent. That warning proved true, yet I treasure the security I felt and still feel when he blessed me with protection as I go about my work in serving others.

Dad taught me to value and enjoy schoolwork. He was quietly proud of my academic success. I saw him continue to extend his own education year after year. That made it natural for me to have the same pursuits as an adult.

He gave me a love for the outdoors, especially the desert. I remember his patient instruction as I tried to climb up the red rocks. “Put your foot right there. Now, do you see the next place to hold on?” He didn’t worry about his beloved 4-wheeler when I turned it over. He encouraged me to get right back on and go again, this time a little faster.

I learned to love and respect my ancestors through his example. The Whitney reunions were sacred occasions that we never missed, no matter how young the youngest baby was. He never gave up learning the latest technology to help us keep our family history current. Dad was a private person but he wrote regularly in his on-line production of the family newsletter. His last family history goal was to find and photograph all of his great-grandparents’ graves. A worthy goal, in my cemetery loving heart. He was always the first to donate time and money to family history projects.

Dad gave service to so many in his public callings in the church and on the job. He was a schoolteacher and dean. He served in Church callings as a bishop, in the temple, and as executive secretary to the stake president of the Logandale Stake. He also went about doing good in his small towns he called home. He was a renowned handyman and would often be found helping repair something for someone. He built and remodeled our homes and church buildings. I thought he could fix or build anything. It was an adjustment for me to find out that not all men have the same talents.

This year (2020) his birthday and Father’s Day, always intertwined in my mind, are actually on the same day. I’m thinking about you, Dad. I’m grateful for you. I especially remember the first early hours of your last Father’s Day in 2005. Thanks for your service that day and so many others. I love you.

Remember a "great day"

Try writing just a glimpse into your life like Rachel did.

When you are as old as I am, it seems rather overwhelming to write about your whole life. However, I believe the best life histories are written just a snippet at a time. The story approach is a good way to write. Here are some helps for writing personal stories.

Another way to give readers (including yourself) a glimpse into your life is to describe a day in detail. I was recently reading through a scrapbook that my daughter Rachel had made about her high school days. Rachel was a keeper, and she put much of what she kept into books: big, stuffed full, not really organized, and certainly not fancy, loose leaf books. What a gift for her family, since she died at a young age, nearly ten years ago! I started a blog to remember her four years ago, but my posts have gotten more infrequent as time passes. A certain essay that she wrote in high school about a wonderful day she had at a swim meet inspired me to write about her once again.(http://rememberingrachel.blogspot.com/)

I offer the essay here, too, in hopes it will inspire all of us to write about our lives, beginning with just one day, or something memorable in one day. Happy writing!

Rachel at an Orem High School swim meet. She graduated
in May of 1994.

Rachel Stubbs
10-19-1992
On October 14, 1992 it was the inner-squad swim meet, blue against gold. I was on the blue team and Bethany and Jared were our captains. I was in the first race, the 200 yard relay medley. I swam fifty fly and I did pretty good too. The next race for me was the 100 yard butterfly, after the diving competition. I was so scared. I had never swam a 100 fly before. And not only that, I had to swim the 500 free right after the 100 fly race. The diving just ended and Dan [my coach] called “first call for 100 fly.” 

I was really nervous. “Swimmers on the blocks,” Arlene [assistant coach] called. Then, “Swimmers on your marks.”  BUZZ, the buzzer went off. I took a flying leap. Splash into the water automatically. My hips start going up and down, starting the dolphin kick. I surface on the top of the water. I take my first stroke. My hands came out and over my head. I take my first breath. I started a pace that I could keep for the whole hundred. Slam! I got to the first wall with only a 75 [yard distance] left; “remember to hit the wall fast,” I thought. 

I got to the other side. “Pretty good so far.” I reach out to hit the pad and I slammed it off the wall. “Great,” I thought, and the push off the wall was no good. I am only half-way through. “I can do it,” is what I assure myself. I reach the other side again. Only a 25 left. “Pick up your speed, Rachel!” I told myself. My hands were in place. Only one more kick and I would be done. Wham! I surfaced. 

Everyone was screaming. Dan was yelling and jumping up and down. I had swam the 100 yards in 1:18! I was so happy. I got out and cooled down, then went and gave my coach Dan a hug. I was happy, but the meet wasn’t over. I still had the 500 and the relay left. The 500 was the next race. All I wanted to do was finish that race. I was so dead from the 100 fly that I really didn’t expect to get my best time. But I did! 

My parents were in the stands so I went up there and was talking to them. Bethany yelled at me to come down. I was supposed to swim in the 200 free relay. They had redone the relay line-up and forgot to tell me. I ran down the stairs and ran to lane six and jumped in and swam my fastest 50 free time. 

It was a great day.

Writing My Personal History

I'm spending some wonderful vacation time in
West Palm Beach. Is there anything more inspiring
than a sunrise over the ocean? 

I woke up yesterday morning with an idea. My writing energy these days is going towards writing my own personal history. I joined a writing group. I took a class on writing narrative history with a deadline assignment of 40 pages. My history is progressing, but I have neglected this blog. So what if I put some personal history writing here? Why? Why do I want to publish? I believe the desire is within each of us to be understood, to be heard, to be listened to. And when I read other people's history it sparks thoughts for me. I hope the same is true for you.
(PS "Gentle" feedback is helpful.)

Coping with Abundance
My life story is about the abundance of gifts that I have been given. At so many times in my life, I have cried out, “Too much! I can’t handle all this.” Whether the “too much” consists of apples or grapes from my yard, children in my house, laundry that floods my laundry room and kitchen floor, ideas for a family reunion, heartache, death, pets, ephemera from the past, or bananas, my problem is always about how to handle it.

Solutions for me seem to come in three categories:

1. Live one day at a time.
2. Let go and trust God.
3. Focus on gratitude

.As I ponder how to make a record of my abundant life, I’m faced with the same old problem. There has been too much of it. I’m always reluctant to throw anything away or to ignore any part of something. It may have value. The truth is that it all does have value, but I can cope with it more easily by taking one piece at a time, by trusting that God is guiding me and can make up my deficiencies, and by focusing on my gratitude for everything I have experienced.

The first part of my life—those growing-up years, my teen years and first years of marriage—I survived by taking just one hour or one day at a time. Those years involved my determination to persevere in following my dreams, to keep believing that things would turn out well. I was determined to make my life work by trying as hard as I could. And I could try really hard. And work really hard. And I did. I was given an abundance of personal gifts and an abundance of personal trials. Determination and setting high goals carried the day.  This part of my life began in 1947 with my birth. I married twenty years later, in 1967. Our early married life still carried this theme. A convenient cut-off date for this first section is 1975 when we moved from one Orem house to the other. Thus the first twenty-seven year period of my life I will call Part 1 (to be titled when inspiration hits).

The middle part of my life is the years from 1975 to 2000. We lived at 448 East 100 South in Orem during these years. They were busy years of raising a family, still being involved with my family of origin and working in my Church. Because we called the house we lived in during that time, “The Stubbs Family Residence,” that is my title for this section for now. During those years, the abundance of blessings I received included much adversity. The trials of those years also brought back some of the things I had ignored during Part 1, childhood trauma, living with an imperfect marriage partner and dealing with my son Andy’s life and death, as well as the death of my mother. I could no longer escape or ignore the reality of death, addiction and the overwhelming nature of my chosen vocation of mother and homemaker. I had to learn to let go of my need to be in control. I had to learn to trust God.

The third part of my life is where I am today, from the year 2000 to the present. My abundant life has continued to be abundant in both blessings and trials. I experienced the death of another daughter. I have come to terms with my eating addiction. The lessons continue. Today I see that my focus must be gratitude. My experiences have taught me that I can endure anything one day at a time, that I can trust God to take care of the myriad things that I have no control over, and that I am grateful for my life and my life lessons. Education has been a major thread running through each part of my life and today I can see that my best educational opportunities are those afforded me by the life I have lived and am living today. One day at a time, I’m learning to trust God and be grateful.

Remembering Rachel

Rachel Stubbs in Adelaide Australia

My niece did a guest post for my blog about my daughter Rachel's mission. She did a beautiful job. Here is the link to read her little piece of family history. http://rememberingrachel.blogspot.com/ Thanks so much Jeni for a wonderful post!

I am excited to go to RootsTech next week. They are streaming many sessions live and will also put them on the web to view later as well. I heard one of the featured speakers in a preview last Saturday. Wow! Hold onto your hats! We are going forward! The exhibit hall is free as are some of the Saturday classes. There is an phone app especially for the conference. I hope to see you there.

Angels Among Us

On January 1st my granddaughter Addie will have her birthday. Her mother, my daughter Rachel, was killed in a car accident 7 years ago. I just celebrated Rachel's birthday this month. Celebrated without her. Most of us who have lost loved ones have trouble getting through the holidays without sadness tempering the joy we may also feel. My thoughts turn to Rachel and to her two daughters often during this time. When Rachel's husband re-married we lost those two dear little granddaughters as well as their mother. The new mother did not want us in their lives.

I think of Addie, who will soon turn 11, and I wonder if she remembers her mother or her mother's family, all of whom adored her. How could she know how loved she is by people she no longer knows? Little Elizabeth, her younger sister, remembers nothing of us, I'm sure. But I remember them. I pray for them and I think about their lives and I hope they are happy and healthy and that their family is all they could need or want. Addie and Elizabeth also have uncles, aunts and cousins who feel the same way about them.

I know their mother Rachel still loves and remembers her girls too. So must my mother, long deceased. And my grandmother, who kept meticulous track of all her descendants and their birthdays. I do not doubt that Grandma still remembers each of our birthdays, including Addie's in just a few days now. Rachel named Addie for a great-grandmother, my husband's mother, who is also now in heaven. How could that grandma have forgotten or quit being interested in her little namesake?

Yet we are all strangers to Addie and Elizabeth right now. Some of us are here and some gone beyond, but we remember and still love those dear ones. It's not much of a stretch for my imagination to believe there are many grandmas and grandpas that I neither know nor remember, who despite my inadequate knowledge, know and care about me. I want to know more about these people. I am curious and even more than curious, interested, and even more, I care about those ancestors of mine. I wonder about my great and many-times-great uncles, aunts and cousins.  I imagine them also interested in me and in my life events, just out of sight, yet concerned for my welfare, my well-being.

This is the season of angels. We sing about them and read of the part they played in the Christmas story so long ago. This year we also have heard about angel teachers, school administrators and first-responders. We mourn those young angels added to the heavenly choirs from the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. Like Mary, I am pondering these things in my heart. But one thing I know. There is more to life than what we see and hear with mortal eyes and ears. There is more than I know or understand. I know that because I have a granddaughter named Addie who will soon be 11. She will celebrate her birthday with her mother and father and little sister and never think of me at all. But I will think about her. And so will angels that I know and many that I don't know. Yet.

Memorial Day

"Waving flags are beautiful, the call of the lone bugle is tender, and the sharp report of a gun salute is a great honor, but to be held in sweet remembrance is the finest tribute of all."

Carl and Stephen working together

Last week this quote from "Music and the Spoken Word" with the Tabernacle Choir grabbed my heart. "To be held in sweet remembrance is the finest tribute of all." I hold many loved ones in sweet remembrance. The older you get, the more people there are to love, and many of them have passed on. As a family, we particularly remembered my daughter Rachel and her girls this year. First we had an outing at Thanksgiving Point, once again enjoying the Dinosaur Museum and lovely grounds there. It was our granddaughter Addie's favorite place to visit with her grandparents. Then we met again at the Rachel Stubbs McTeer Memorial Park. There a lovely monument stands to honor Rachel and we had some plans to do the same.

At the park's dedication in 2006, our family planted a tree in Rachel's memory. However, it didn't survive the winter. I felt that it was time to replant. The season was right and the ground has been prepared by our heavy spring rains this year. We bought the same type of tree, a flowering pear tree that will blossom in the spring, provide shade all summer and then show beautiful red autumn foliage. 

I couldn't help but ponder the symbolism of our replanting. The season of Rachel's death was difficult, but we pulled together in love as a family. The last six years have been hard on many of us and there have been heartaches and divisions. However, I believe the ground has been prepared for a season of renewing our love and family unity. I'm looking forward to basking in that love and enjoying the beautiful "foliage" of family life that surrounds us. 

Amy and Stephen compare ribbons as Tommy looks on.

An especially sweet moment occurred at the tree planting when both Amy and Stephen pulled out their pieces of ribbon from the original ribbon cutting at the park. They had each carried those little white ribbons with them for 5 years. Amy also had her little rock from that day with her. Each of us had been given an small apache tear. These little rocks look black, but when held to the light, they are transparent. This Memorial Day 2011, after the tree was planted in that beautiful spot, Jim led our family group in prayer to ask God's blessings on the park and on our family.

Park monument as it is today

We also noticed that Rachel's dreams for this piece of ground were being fulfilled. Many people were enjoying the park, its walking path, playground and basketball hoop and athletic field. It's a small park, but it has been used and enjoyed.  The monument reads "Rachel Stubbs McTeer: Alpine City Planner; A cheerful, outgoing, positive personality; Adelaide, Elizabeth (in a heart); A loving Mother." We totally agree.