One year later.

So, my beautiful wife Kimberlee wrote in her blog tonight. This is what I wrote in response.

Well, this is two nights in a row that I am crying. Three out of the last four days too. I wonder if this week, the week of Thanksgiving is destined to be a tearful one for me each year. Last year I lost my father to the dreaded Parkinson's disease, then welcomed my beautiful daughter here to seemingly somehow fill the void. Tears flowed freely at both occasions. This year I lost a friend, Scott Davis and I thought about my dad and how I miss him and tears flowed freely on both occasions. Then I read your blog and your beautiful poem and I realize while I am not as reluctant to let Father Time do his job, I am still sad to see it happen so fast. Our little Norah Rose is such a precious gift and I am so incredibly grateful everyday for her charm and her never ending smiles and her deep blue eyes and her love, her love that she gives so freely. In her I see us and in us I see two people hand picked by our Father in Heaven to be together and raise this little Norah with Lily and Felicity and Bridger and Malachi. In them I see our family and in our family I feel strength. Strength that grows with each passing month that we build our home together, strength that fights against the influences of the outside world with stubborn resiliency. And while I see all of this in our family, somehow it all is so perfectly condensed in the deep love I feel when I look into the eyes of our pure and innocent little one year old, little Norah Rose.


And now I will write the first blog I have written since a year ago, since before I had my new baby and since right after I lost my father.

This week has been incredible. Like a roller coaster, but like a roller coaster being ridden for the first time and in the dark. It started when I got a strange text message from a good friend's wife. It said she wanted to make sure I knew of his passing! I knew what that meant but it couldn't be true. Scott Davis was about my age, had 3 kids and a wife at home. He couldn't possibly be dead, and even if he was, why was his wife taking time out of her grieving to call me? Scott and I were definitely friends, but not close friends, he started out as a customer and lately we had spent a lot of time working together on a variety of things including his radio show and prepping him for some races. When I did get a hold of his wife, Kim, she said, that it was true, he had an accident and was dead at 41 years old. Scott Davis, the guy with the contagious grin and a pureness of heart I have only experienced in a few people on this earth, was gone. And Kim had told me that I had made a real impact on his life. I am not sure what it was about his passing that struck me so hard, but it did. Maybe it was his age, so close to mine. Or it could have been those words his wife spoke about my impact on him. I felt almost guilty, because I really liked Scott, deeply admired him, but I couldn't say that he had impacted my life in any particular way. I learned of his death on the same Sunday as my father died one year earlier, the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Tuesday was Scott's funeral. WOW, what an event, absolutely full of the Spirit, as was Scott. I needed that spiritual uplift. And just two days earlier I had not realized how much Scott had impacted my life. As I listened to stories from his youth and heard countless examples of his service to others, I realized that Scott had quietly impacted my life while he was here, but he had powerfully impacted my life in the days since his death. There is so much that I learned during his funeral service, but one thing that will always stick with me is that time on this earth is precious. In the blink of an eye someone you love could be gone.

The next day I was at RidgeCrest with Will and was thinking about Scott and his two good friends that spoke at his funeral and I realized that I had to make something happen. Will and I had been talking since the 80's about the possibility of seeing Pink Floyd live. It appeared that we would never get that chance. Then Roger Waters announced that he would be performing The Wall in it's entirety live in a lot of places other than Salt Lake City, of course. So we had plotted and planned but hadn't pulled the trigger to actually go to the show. So it was Wednesday during the RidgeCrest meeting that I decided I wasn't going to let the top item on Will's bucket list go by. I am his best friend, and that's what best friend's are for. So, I simply had to make it happen. I didn't realize at the time that the only show that could possibly work was on Black Friday. Yeah, two days away. AND the show was sold out months ago. But, long story short, with some love and understanding from our wives, I made it happen. So, tonight we saw THE WALL LIVE in Vegas!!! Wow, this would be the most fun part of the week so far. Amazing show and amazing friendship. What could be better? Well, we got our rental car for $10 and got bumped to first class on the flight out. That's pretty cool. Oh and the sold out show, they opened up some seats at the last minute, and good ones too, one section back from the stage and 7 rows up. Yes, we booked flights to Vegas with a room and a car but no tickets to the sold out show. It all came together and Will won’t stop talking about the amazing, once in a lifetime event. And now he can mark that one off his bucket list.

And now back to the other part of the week that hit me! Thanksgiving night, I was sick and tired, it had been an exhausting, albeit enjoyable day, I mean really the absolute best Thanksgiving dinner I have ever had in my 38 years. But, where was I? Oh yeah sick and tired, my wife, my baby and I had all been fighting a cold most of the week and mine had just hit it's peak. So after looking at a really weak batch of black Friday ads, we crawled into bed. I said two things to Kimberlee as I snuggled close to her; "Our baby is going to be one year old in one more day......and my dad has been gone for a year." And that is all it took, I started to sob. I thought about my dear old dad. I thought about all of the crazy business things that had transpired in my life that year and all of the advice I would normally have asked for from him. I thought about the stories I would have proudly told him, because of all the people in this world who believe in me, he believed in me the most. And of all the people I wanted to impress, it was his approval I needed and it was his that I nearly always had. My dad loved me with the pride that a father should have in a son. I don't know how much of it was deserved I just know that he was the biggest part of my cheering section. And for all of those reasons, I miss my dad. One year ago, we buried him, tomorrow his granddaughter, the one that was born two days after he was buried, will turn one year old and I can only imagine the smile on his face as he looks down on us and knowingly nods his approval with fatherly pride, knowing that my family is doing just fine. Dad, we are doing just fine and I want you to know how indelible your imprint has been in my life. I am what I am and do what I do still seeking your approval and your blessing. Dad, you did a great job and I do miss you, I always will I suppose, but aren't I fortunate to have a father who is worthy of missing so deeply that a year later it makes me cry like a little one year old baby.

Dad, Norah, Will, Scott, thank you so much for making this week's roller coaster so darn memorable. I love you all.