Mom

My mom grew up as a tomboy in an era when opportunities for girls to participate in athletics were still few and far between. She is the second oldest of eight children (Seven girls, one boy) and grew up in a house with one bathroom. She was always fast and in her childhood says she was even faster than the boys. (Even when she was an adult I have a memory of her winning her age group back when they would have foot races on the 4th of July).

I remember her telling me about getting in a fight as a child against a much larger boy. The other kids formed a circle around them and they were in the middle to fight. She immediately punched the boy right in the nose and that was the end of the fight.

I would guess my mom's competitiveness comes through her dad. My Grandpa Nalder played college football for the U (where he played defensive tackle at 5'8", 175 lbs and his nickname was Killer Nalder). Ping-pong is the sport I remember competing with my mom the most in and if you were going to win, you were going to have to earn it. In the basement where the ping-pong table was, there was a spot where the ceiling dropped a little lower and that edge was covered with little divots from people slamming their paddles. I guess my mom passed on some of that competitiveness. (My dad always said we got our smarts and our athleticism from my mom. I guess we got our sense of humor from my dad, some more than others).

Another example of my mom's competitiveness was her sliding into second while playing co-ed softball when she was eight months pregnant with my brother Alan. (Perhaps not so coincidentally, Alan is probably the most competitive of my siblings).

I'm not sure which of my brothers was playing at the time, but there was a particular baseball game where some calls weren't going our way and my mom was letting the ump hear about it. (I don't condone this behavior). The ump became fed up and yelled at my mom, asking her if she thought she could do better. Now I've seen that interaction happen before with other umps and other vocal parents, and usually the parent maybe grumbles a few more words under their breath but ultimately backs down. But that's not what happened with my mom. "Yeah, I do!" she replied and she came down and started umpiring the game. The first batter after my mom took the field, there were runners on first and second and the batter popped it up in the infield. Without hesitation, she called the batter out and said that the runners could advance at their own risk. Her first play, she had to call an "infield fly rule," and she nailed it.

On one occasion as an adult, I had yelled at (and chased after) a neighborhood kid after my boys kept coming home crying after run-ins with him. Shortly thereafter, I received a note on my porch from the boys' mother criticizing my actions and basically calling me a jerk (which was probably fair). I was incensed. This lady's kid caused all kinds of problems in the neighborhood and she was blaming me. My instinct was to double down and reply with a nasty note, and point out all this woman's flaws as a mother. But I called my mom. She wisely counseled me that criticizing her as a mother was a fight I wouldn't win and suggested that instead of replying with an angry letter, that I call her and calmly try to come to an understanding. I didn't want to do that. But I did. And we did come to an understanding and a friendship was preserved.

My mom has dealt with some adversity in her life. She came from a family of eight and my dad from a family of ten and neither of my grandmothers ever suffered a miscarriage. (My mom would always tell men she dated that she wanted ten kids, which usually scared them off, until she told that to my dad and he responded, "I was hoping for twelve." (They settled for seven)). But after my mom and dad were married in 1973, she suffered two miscarriages before I was born (three years later in 1976). She would talk about how hard those first few Mother's Day were for her.

When I was seven or eight, my mom lost the tip of her middle finger in an accident with a lawnmower. She's always had a good sense of humor about it and laughed good-naturedly at my dad's jokes about getting a discount on a manicure or being able to count in fractions.

When I was 14 or 15, my dad made some mistakes and got into some legal trouble. The case worked its way through the legal system and a couple of years later, just before I turned 17, my dad was sentenced to a year in federal prison. My mom hadn't known anything about the illegal activity and as I look back on it now, could have easily decided this wasn't her problem and parted ways with my dad. I don't think that thought ever entered her mind. She stood by him through everything. And then my dad went to prison and she was left alone with seven children, from age 17 down to 2. I think about how much of a collaboration it is between Jeanell and I just to get our lone remaining school-aged child where she needs to be and can't imagine how my mom managed that, let alone the financial and other considerations. She did have support and help from friends and family. People from the community we didn't even know well stepped in a paid some of my brothers' sports fees.

But my mom shouldered the bulk of that burden, and did so admirably.

She would take us on trips to visit my dad (he was at Nellis Air Force Base, near Las Vegas) and would drive us all down in our big blue van (the Komfort Koach). That van had a peaked roof and on one of these trips (taken on New Year's Eve 1993) we inadvertently pulled into the underground parking at Circus Circus and the top of the van was scraping on the ceiling of the parking garage. I don't remember the details but we were able to get back out and into the oversize parking. The eight of us spent the night in a single hotel room watching Seinfeld reruns and went to see my dad the following day.

I'll be forever grateful to my mom for holding our family together in a way that when my dad returned, we were able to recover some normalcy rather than letting it be something that would drastically alter the course of the remainder of our lives.

My mom was challenged again a few years ago with the unexpected death of her husband of 48 years (he passed away just two weeks after their 48th anniversary). That has been a difficult adjustment as she and my dad spent almost all of their time together. But she continues to press forward and bless the lives of her family and those around her.

My mom has always been an example of service. One of my favorite examples of this was when she and her good friend Liz Tripp took it upon themselves to help some kids in the neighborhood for whom English was a second language learn to read. Every week, these kids would come to their houses and my mom would give of her time helping them to learn to read.

As I sat down to write this, I found that I had a hard time recalling a lot of distinct memories between me and my mom. On further reflection, I think that is because she has always been a constant in my life. She's always been there, loving and supporting me, helping me to become the man I am today.

I love you Mom. Happy Mother's Day!

My all-time favorite picture of my mom

Marrying Jeanell

In five days, Jeanell and I will celebrate our 24th anniversary, which has me reflecting back on our engagement and marriage.

Some time before we got engaged, we had gone to Heber City with Jeanell's family to ride the Polar Express and stay over night. The next day, Carol (Jeanell's mom), Jeanell, and I drove back together in the big red Ford F150 (later totaled) and stopped at Sierra West Jewelers in Orem, on University Parkway. I believe Dave (Jeanell's dad) had a connection with one of the jewelers there (Bart?) and others in the Jefferies family had purchased engagement/wedding rings there. In any case, the three of us went and picked out a ring together (let's be honest, I did very little of the picking, but all of the paying).

I don't remember if it was a salesman or another customer but some guy noticed me browsing the store with my fiance-to-be and her mom and whispered "Good luck, buddy" as I walked past. Personally, I was glad to have them both there. I have a few talents I guess, but picking out a ring I would be confident Jeanell would like is not one of them.

I don't remember if it was before or after we went ring-shopping, but at some point I sat down with Dave (Jeanell's dad) and asked for Jeanell's hand. I don't remember too much about the conversation. It seems like it turned out that everyone else was gone somewhere so it was just Dave and I in the house. We talked in their front room at the old house on Deseret Circle. As he always is, Dave was very kind and made be feel at ease. The only thing I specifically remember him saying is that I didn't have to ask, but he appreciated that I did. He gave us his blessing.

A little time passed, I picked up the correctly-sized ring, and we were ready to get engaged. With Jeanell's three kids, we kind of had to plan a night out to go get engaged, so I believe she knew it was coming. We drove into Salt Lake (neither of us acknowledged as we drove in that I was going to ask her to marry me, but my memory was that we both knew it was happening) and ate dinner at the downtown Olive Garden (now gone). Afterward, we went on a carriage ride around Temple Square (also no longer a thing) and during the carriage ride is when I asked her. The driver of the carriage was chatty and so it was a few minutes before I found my opportunity. But as soon as the driver stopped talking for a minute, I got down on one knee (or at least I think I did, probably wasn't too easy to do that inside the carriage) and asked Jeanell if she would marry me. When she responded that she would, I slipped the ring onto her finger. Almost immediately, the driver turned around to talk to us, noticed the ring on Jeanell's finger, and asked if that was new. We replied that it was and he congratulated us. We returned home to tell our parents and took our first photo as an engaged couple.

I wish I could say that it was all smooth sailing after that, but our engagement was not without its hiccups. For one, we were apart for the most part other than weekends as I finished the 2nd half of my junior year at Utah State and Jeanell continued in Grantsville. It would have been toward the end of February or early March when Jeanell had arranged with a photographer to go and get our engagement pictures taken. It seems like things had been a little off between us in the days or weeks leading up to that. In any case, we drove into Salt Lake to get the pictures taken, but the photographer didn't show up. I've been trying to remember how we learned that he wasn't coming. These were the days before most people had a cell phone. Jeanell may have been using one that her parents had and maybe the photographer called us on that (but not until we'd already made the drive into Salt Lake). When the photographer canceled, I thought we should stay in Salt Lake and go to dinner or something and make a date of it. But Jeanell thought we should go back home so she could make it to the practice for a number she was part of for the Old Folks' Sociable.

This disagreement turned into a pretty big argument and it continued after we had returned to Grantsville (we didn't go to dinner). I remember going down into the room where Jeanell was staying in her parents' basement and arguing some more and at some point Jeanell saying that maybe we should call off the wedding. This was not what I wanted to hear and I remember becoming pretty upset. Jeanell wasn't suggesting that we break-up, but just that we postpone the wedding and get married a little later. Since we hadn't taken our engagement pictures, announcements hadn't gone out, but we were pretty deep into the wedding planning process. We continued talking and eventually got back on the same page and decided to move ahead with the wedding as scheduled. A week or two later, we went in for our rescheduled photo session at the International Peace Gardens and took some great photos. The initial cancellation almost seemed to be for the best because we both felt we were in a better place at the time of the rescheduled appointment than at the time of the original appointment.

We were married on May 10, 2000 in the Salt Lake Temple. I had worked for Hatch Howard for several years and he was a sealer at the Bountiful Temple and I remember wanting him to seal us, but because we were getting married in Salt Lake, that wasn't going to work out. The sealer who did seal us (Ned Winder, I believe) had also sealed Brad (Jeanell's ex-husband) and Jeanell a few years prior and I remember him being curious as to what had happened with her previous husband. This wasn't just privately to Jeanell either, but with both of us there together, he asked if her first husband had died. And when we told him that her first husband was alive and well, he said something about him wandering off into the Stansbury mountains (where Ned had apparently camped and hunted from time to time). I think we just nodded and laughed and hoped that he would drop it. A bit awkward, to say the least.

My other distinct memory for the actual marriage ceremony is that after it was over and the people who had attended were walking by to congratulate us, I accidentally kissed Jeanell's Aunt Jean right on the lips. It happened so fast, but I'm quite certain that neither of us intended a kiss on the lips. I think we both were going for the cheek and just turned opposite ways or something. Has always been a funny memory from that day.

I remember it being a cold and windy day and getting pictures around the temple being a bit challenging. Our wedding video has some footage of us trying to get the big family shot on the temple steps with Jeanell holding onto her veil as it is being blown by the wind. (It also catches me taking a not-so-subtle glance at Jeanell's chest, but we just try to pretend that it doesn't).

After pictures, we moved on to a wedding celebration at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. I believe we each invited 100 people and had a dinner, a short program, and dancing.

The program was emceed by Matt Price and Jerry Stocks (They had a couple of good bits at my expense. The one I remember was about about the fact that I had written in a journal after Jeanell and I broke up in high school "Don't ever date red-heads" so Matt disclosed the fact that I had written that and Jerry replied "Right, just marry 'em.") and consisted of me, my brothers, and Jeanell's brothers performing a dance to "My Girl" by The Temptations (the dance we performed actually originated when several of my friends performed it at my buddy Dave Fawson's sister Angie's wedding (though for whatever reason I did not participate at that time), then Dave, and two of my other friends (Aaron Allred and Ryan Keisel) used the dance for their number in the Most Preferred Man contest our junior year, and finally, we performed it at my and Jeanell's wedding). My sister McKell and son Devin sang a duet of "Side by Side". Jeanell, her sister Rachel, and mother Carol sang “Goin’ to the Chapel” and Jeanell and I sang "Story of Love." My favorite number was Jeanell's and my parents singing "I Got You Babe" after which Matt used a line my dad had given him, "There we had the mamas and the papas singing a little Sonny and Cher."

We had a live band for the dance and when it was time for that to start, the band was asking us what song we wanted them to play for our first dance. I asked them if they knew "Have You Ever Been in Love" by Peter Cetera, which we considered to be our song (at least for the second time we dated. The first time we dated it was Bryan Adams' "Please Forgive Me"), That wasn't in their repertoire so we settled for "When I Fall in Love" from "Sleepless in Seattle."

A couple of final memories from that night. My brother Scott and Jeanell's brother Aaron both spoke Spanish and at some point during the evening, Aaron couldn't see me or Jeanell and said to Scott "Donde estan Rich y Jeanell? Estan haciendo la cosa loca?" I was actually right behind them and also spoke Spanish and immediately interjected "Yo estoy aqui." Aaron turned around and started laughing.

The last memory is about Devin, who typically was always happy to go and stay with his Grandma Jefferies, but as the evening wound down and Jeanell and I were getting ready to leave on our honeymoon, Devin unexpectedly became very adamant about going with his mom and began crying (he was four). My memory is that he was still crying in Grandma's arms as we got onto the elevator to go down to the car. Made that moment a little bittersweet.

Those are the memories I have of the day I married the love of my life and the events leading up to it. So grateful for that wonderful day and the tremendous blessing marrying Jeanell has been in my life.