The Rich Life: My Other Dad

Since my dad passed away, a little less than three years ago, Father's Day has been a bittersweet day. I of course think about him and his life and the father he was to me. I think about the advice that he gave and the example he set. I try not to be too sad and instead be grateful that for nearly 45 years of my life, I had a dad in my life who loved and cared about me and wanted the best for me.

I have written some about my dad and definitely have more to say about him, but one thing his unexpected death taught me was that I wished I had done a better job of expressing my love and appreciation for him while he was here so while I will certainly return to writing about my dad in future posts, today I would like to focus on my other dad.

(I hope my dad knows how I feel about him. Whenever my run takes me past the cemetery where he is buried, I will dip in and tell him hello and that I love him. But I guess either he's right about things, in which case he should already know the love and appreciation I have for him, or I'm right, in which case waiting a bit more time for me to write some more about him isn't going to hurt anything. I guess if I go before I get the chance to write all that I want to and he's right, then I can tell him in person (although I guess I'm not sure what the exact doctrine on that would be). I'm sure the first thing he'll say is "I told you.")

I am so grateful to have my wife and children and to be able to be with them. I'm grateful for my brothers and friends, who are wonderful examples of manhood and fatherhood. And I'm grateful for other men who have had a father-like influence in my life. Men like the dads of some of my closest friends, Jack Allred, Tom Tripp, Big Dave Fawson, and Earl Larsen. Men like Sunnie Titmus, for whom I worked for many years and who ordained me an Elder when my dad was unable to. And men like Kevin Butler and Mark Hutchins, who I played for for a few years (Just because I think the Grantsville family connections are interesting, Mark and Kevin are both related to Jeanell, through her Jefferies side. Mark is Jeanell's dad's first-cousin and Kevin is married to Mark's sister Jeri).

(Some of these parentheticals should probably be footnotes, but I looked into how to do them on this blogging platform and it seemed like too much work. I wanted to spend my time writing, not formatting footnotes. Anyway, as most maybe know, I am no longer an active or believing member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But for the majority of my life thus far, I was, and many of my life experiences are connected to the Church and I will write about them, mostly in a positive way. For example, while I no longer believe in the spiritual or eternal significance of being ordained an Elder, on a human level, it was still a meaningful experience in my life and I am grateful to Sunnie for performing that ordinance. This explanation is probably unnecessary, but I guess I wanted to express how I try to approach a life that includes a quite-religious past and a non-religious present. And I don't want people thinking that because I mentioned something from my religious past that it means I'm on the verge of going back to church).

But the man who has had the most influence on the man and father I am today, other than my own father, is Jeanell's dad, Dave Jefferies. (I usually try to avoid "in-law" terms, just like I'm not a fan of using "step" to describe my relationship to my older sons. For whatever reason, both seem to have a negative connotation that don't do justice to my feelings for and relationships with people for whom I could technically use those terms. I blame Disney, at least for the latter).

Like many people in my life, I don't remember specifically the first time I met Dave. When I dated Jeanell when we were in high school, I have only a couple of memories. The first is when I rode down with Jeanell's family to watch her brother Cam (who is two years older than Jeanell and I) play in the All-Star Football game sometime in the summer of 1993. Afterward we stopped at Training Table, and when the food was ready, Dave told me to come and help bring the trays back to our table, which made me feel included (we hadn't been dating too long at the time).

The other memory I have is being at Jeanell's house and Jeanell and I being out on their front lawn after dark. Her brother Cam was leaving to go somewhere and as he was leaving through the front door, Dave told him to leave the main door open (there was a screen door in front of the main door). Cam turned and quipped, "You want to keep an eye on Rich's hands?" and then laughed as he headed down the steps.

When Jeanell and I started dating again several years later, Dave was always welcoming and accepting of me. They had one of those old-school big screen TVs that weighted 1000 lbs and it had picture-in-picture. I don't remember exactly who was playing but I would guess maybe there was a BYU game and a Jazz game or something and I suggested that we get together and take advantage of the picture-in-picture to keep an eye on both games. Dave was always extremely busy between running the grocery store and his various church callings, not to mention being a dad and grandpa, and I don't know if he would have even watched those games ordinarily, but he accepted the invitation, cooked us some steaks, and we spent the evening together following both games.

Asking your girlfriend's dad for her hand in marriage can be a scary and intimidating experience, but with Dave that was not the case. He was very warm and welcoming and I remember him saying that I didn't need to ask, but that he appreciated. Not too long ago, he mentioned to me again how I didn't need to do that, but how much he appreciated the gesture.

The first few months of Jeanell and my marriage, we lived with Dave and Carol and things didn't always go smoothly as Jeanell and I adjusted to married life. I was immediately a dad for the first time and Jeanell's previous marriage had ended less than a year prior and there were some rocky times. I didn't want to talk to my own parents about our problems and I appreciated being able to talk to and get advice from Dave. I distinctly remember asking him for a blessing at one time and being grateful for the counsel he gave through that blessing.

That first summer we were married, I worked for Broken Arrow at the Clive site in the desert west of Grantsville. I would catch a shuttle that stopped at Jay's (Jay was Jeanell's grandma's brother) gas station early each morning (maybe 5:30?) to take the 45-minute ride out to Clive. The first morning I got up to go to work after we had returned from our honeymoon, Jeanell had prepared a lunch for me with sandwiches, chips, and drinks, and a love note. But that I recall, that never happened again (understandably as Jeanell was taking care of three young boys and working herself). But after that first day, it was Dave who took care of making sure I had a lunch to take out to Clive. He got up extremely early each morning to start the day at the store, and he would take me down there, let me grab some items to take for my lunch (that we wrote down to be paid for later since the store wasn't yet open. I never paid for the items) and then would run me to Jay's to catch the bus. He did that all through that summer we lived with them.

Dave has a gift for detecting people's needs and then taking action to do something to meet that need. With some of the money Jeanell and I got at our wedding, we bought me an olive-green suit, but I didn't have any socks to go with it, so every Sunday I would ask Dave to borrow some dark green socks that he had that went with the suit. Then one day he handed me a package of olive-green socks for myself. When my dad died and we were all busy preparing for the viewing and funeral, Dave came and got my dress shoes and shined them for me. When I thanked him for doing that, he said, "Such a small gesture of what I wish I could do to bring peace to you at this time. I love you." That simple gesture meant so much to me during what was a difficult time. More recently, Dave bought me a pair of Skechers slip-on shoes out of the blue because he knows that I don't like to have shoes that I have to tie or bend down to put on.

Dave has helped Jeanell and I move multiple times, but one time in particular stands out. We were moving from the Aggie Village in Logan to the Pinebrook Apartments in Ogden in the spring of 2001 and as people tend to do, we underestimated how much work it was going to be to pack everything up and move it. Some of my family had come up and helped earlier in the day, but they had left and as it got later and later, it was just Dave, Jeanell, and I making trip after trip to the moving truck. I think we ended up leaving Logan after midnight on a Sunday morning, getting to Ogden around 1 AM, and getting enough moved into the new apartment to call it a night about 2 AM. We begged Dave to just stay and sleep at our apartment, but he needed to get back. He probably got back to Grantsville at 3 AM and then had to get up at 5 AM to go and let the cleaner out of the store.

On one Jefferies family trip to Southern California, we had rented two 15-passenger vans to get around. Not sure why, given my track record, but for whatever reason on one of the days we were going to the beach and I was driving one van and Dave was driving the other. The beach was packed and we couldn't find a spot to park the vans so we let everyone out and just kept making a loop around and back through the parking lots at the beach, hoping at some point we'd find an open spot. We never did find a spot and ended up driving around for a couple of hours while everyone else enjoyed the beach, at which point they all piled back into the vans on one of our passes through, and we headed back to the hotel.

When Jeanell and I moved back to Grantsville in the fall of 2013, we moved in with her parents for a time, first while we saved up some money, and then while our new house was being built. During that time, Dave would frequently make dinner for us. On one occasion, we had ordered some Chinese food and Dave and I were going to pick it up. As we went out to get into the old Ford Expedition he always drove, I stepped in a pile of dog poop, without realizing it. We got in the car, and I definitely noticed the smell, but I thought it was maybe from Tisha (their cat) being taken somewhere. Dave was too polite to say anything about the smell so we rode all the way to Tooele without either of us mentioning it. It wasn't until we got to the restaurant and I got out of the car that I realized I had a substantial amount of dog poop on my shoes.

Speaking of Tisha, she died while we were living there at the ripe old age of 18. I don't remember what month it was, but it was winter and Dave and I went in the backyard and tried to dig a grave for her. I've done a fair share of manual labor in my time and played a fair amount of sports. I've even run a few marathons. But I don't remember doing anything that taxed me physically like trying to dig that grave. Dave had a pick and we'd take turns with it, trying to break up the frozen ground and get a hole big enough to bury Tisha in. We eventually did, but I'm pretty sure it was just deep enough, not an inch more.

I love the grandpa Dave is to my kids. He strives to have a personal relationship with each of them and is always willing to help them or support them in whatever they are doing. He loves nothing more than attending events to support his grandkids and is always willing to give a ride when the parents can't be everywhere. And those rides usually turn into trips to McDonald's.

Something I've come to appreciate over the now 10+ years that we've been back in Grantsville is how universally loved Dave is. He treats everyone with kindness, respect, empathy, patience, warmth, and without judgment. And because of that, everyone who knows Dave and has the privilege of interacting with him, loves him.

Dave has been such a blessing in my life. It has been a privilege to be able to observe how he lives his life and strive to follow his example of love and patience.

Happy Father's Day Dave. I love you.