My Dad was a season ticket holder in basketball and football for decades. He had several kids go to BYU and raised a horde of BYU fans.

One of the great experiences I had with him was attending the UCLA/BYU Las Vegas Bowl, the Eathyn Manumaleuna blocked FG game. Family and BYU loyalty won out: even though I am a UCLA alum and was then a UCLA season ticket holder, we all wore BYU colors to the game — even the less actives among our extended group. It was a thrilling, freezing, heart-stopping and magical family experience.

We've been through a lot of other experiences with BYU sports together. One other noteworthy one was racing home from a family wedding in Idaho, listening to the entire Beck to Harline game on the radio and arriving back in Provo just in time to all run down and see the final drive.

He was our ward's Scoutmaster and faithfully took us on epic backpacking hikes, to scout camp (one year with Donny Osmond as his assistant Scoutmaster!), to the Yukon Derby at Aspen Grove, and numerous other trips I'll never forget. He especially loved the annual trip to Robbers Roost and the Dirty Devil River, which involved absailing/rapelling. Coming back to BYU loyalty, there were many Scout campouts where, over objections from some scouts, he insisted on turning to KSL as we drove to or back from wherever we were camping to listen to football or basketball games.

At one point or other, he supported multiple of his siblings and his parents and other extended family when they fell on hard times. We had some of my cousins live with us at times while their parents struggled. He was a softy and faithfully advocated for and supported the black sheep and hard luck family members, whom many had written off as lost causes. He was hopeful in others to a fault.

He worked harder and longer hours than almost anyone I've ever known or heard of. And he did a lot of good at home and in the world. He was a penny-pincher as a Father, the sort that made us think the family might go broke if we ordered soft drinks with dinner. Meanwhile, he gave freely of his time and substance to the ward and to various causes, including his humanitarian efforts. As a young man, it was hard for me to understand why he was so parsimonious at home and gave so freely to others. I still think he may have overdone that and could have achieved a better work/life time split. But looking at how well his children have turned out, all standing firmly on their own two feet, I now see some of his and Mom's wisdom. Even seeing it, though, I doubt I will have the discipline to replicate it.

Dad was a faithful Church member his whole life. You could do much worse in this world than a guy without major vices who stayed with his wife and kids through thick and thin, and rarely did anything for himself, other than perhaps taking a sort of pleasure in working brutally long hours. But he was much better than that baseline.

He had heroic moments — on numerous occasions he answered the "is there a doctor in the house?" call, e.g. at stake conference, during sacrament meeting, more than once on airplanes, and even on the ski slopes. In the last case, one time he and my uncle resuscitated and stabilized an older skier at Alta who crashed in front of us and then stopped breathing on the slopes. The ski patrol came and he stepped in to intubate and stabilize the man until life flight arrived. We later learned the man had a broken neck. Presumably this was from an earlier fall we did not see that immediately preceded the less impactful slumping one we did. The man died within days in the hospital surrounded by his family. As a dumb teenager I couldn't understand why the family were so grateful. This heroic act seemed pointless to me then. I mean, he still died. But I know now firsthand that saying goodbye is powerful and losing a chance to say goodbye can be agonizing.

In fact, last week, after my wife had a sudden and inexplicable urge to fly to Utah with our family, I went along with the urge and on less than 36 hour notice we all flew up to Utah. I was able to spend a week with my Dad, a few hours a day sharing thoughts with him as he was too far gone to say anything back. I can appreciate now the difference between being able to say goodbye or make one's peace and not, and how much it meant to that family on the ski slopes to say goodbye to their Dad and Grandfather. We're not all so lucky.

I could go on and on about Dad. He lived a good life, and was fortunate to see relatively old age, unfortunate to die younger than many, and especially to suffer a slow and, for him, humiliating decline the last 10 years. My mother's passing was much worse, and took a toll on him. He wasn't perfect, but he was pretty darn good. I only heard him swear twice in my life: first, when he fell off a ladder putting up Christmas ornaments and narrowly missed crushing my toddler sister; and, second, when, after racing home from the hospital, late as usual, to leave for the Fathers' and Sons' campout, he banged his head in the attic retrieving camping gear in a rush, and came down the ladder with gushing wound: we had to stop and get stitches on the way to the campout — we arrived VERY late at night as a result. But we made it.

My mother sometimes said he had once had a problem with his temper. I saw flashes of a temper sometimes but never anything terrible. He must have worked hard and learned to control it. One night when I was a teenager, I heard him come in after midnight from a late night at the hospital in his scrubs, and I snuck toward the kitchen. He was, unbeknownst to me, working on a slideshow presentation for work the next day, putting physical slides into one of those old circular projector trays. When I shouted "boo" at 1:30 am or so, the tray went flying and slides scattered all across the floor. He seized up for a moment, held his breath, and then just laughed and had a bite with me and talked. He had to stay up and finish it, and I went back to bed feeling terrible about it but unable to help him.

When my mother died many years ago, various people came up and shared things she had done that were kind that I never heard or knew about. And she left behind a diary that was pure gold, more precious than Lehi's plates of brass to his descendants. In just a day or so after Dad died, I've similarly had a number of people contact me and share experiences or just impressions of my Dad that I knew nothing about but that make me think more highly of him.

I think I've got a lot to learn to be at that level or to prompt any such stories as those above. I've been missing him for a few years as his disease has slowly taken him away. Covid has been terribly isolating. But I really miss him now.