Mom & Dad

Our family wouldn't be complete without a discussion about Mom & Dad.  I know I have talked about both separately, but this is more about them together...two very different people who managed to overcome their differences to focus on the one thing that was most important to them both: raising a family with so much love and support, and occasional firmness, that they would always feel secure.

I suppose that priority might have been borne of their own individual growing-up experiences, dad a virtual orphan who was raised by an elderly great aunt and uncle (George and Mary Cook...the same ones who raised grandpa Byron when he was literally orphaned); and mom without a father from a very early age, and whose mother had to work very hard to put a roof over the heads of and food on the table for her own brood of six.

Dad grew up as a smallish kid who loved competition, and always went around with a sort of chip on his shoulder.  He was baptized as a child (the Cooks were religious folk) but was not active and didn't have much background in the church.  The one childhood experience he did mention once in a great while was being terrified by some rustling curtains while alone at a church building.  He loved sports of all kinds, and being outdoors, and like many men of that generation, was sort of a renaissance man...there were few practical skills he didn't possess.  He didn't go to college, but did graduate high school, something of an accomplishment for a young man in his situation.

Though Mom's dad was not very religious (rumor was he made his own beer, and maybe more serious stuff at times), her mother was.  The Jackman family was very spiritual and family oriented, and Gertrude had a temple recommend all the time I knew her...even though she drank a little tea.  She was kind and gentle, and that passed through to Mom, who was always the patient opposite of Dad's impatience, and short temper.  If you got in trouble, you better do it in the daytime when Dad was at work, and you hoped Mom would not follow through on her off-hand resolve to "tell your father when he comes home.

Even though we feared Dad's short temper, I don't remember him ever spanking me or otherwise punishing us physically (except the infamous boot situation I have mentioned in other writings:-)).  I do remember him gripping me by both my upper arms, and raising me to eye level, and giving me an angry look...that accounts for the fear, I guess.

But there was no inconsistency...they both came to any evening events I was in (plays, concerts, games, etc.).  Their discipline was absolutely in harmony...you better not be caught trying to play one against the other ("well mom said..." "is that so? well let ME go ask her..."well maybe that wasn't exactly what she said"...).

And they always praised even our best efforts, though sometimes they questioned, accurately,  whether something was our best effort.

But one thing that triggered this memory was a photo of my Dad and Mom together at a ward dinner.  They were not party animals while we were growing up, but right before my mission, and after until I got married, my Dad began a practice of taking my Mom to lunch...not every day, but several times a week.  He was retired, she was still working, and he would pick her up and take her to one of their favorite haunts...not really fancy places, but not fast food either.  He invited me to come along on a few occasions, and I just remember how my Mom glowed at being treated so specially. Dad would usually put on some nice clothes, and he would do the whole chair-door thing.  I think he was pleased that he was finally in a position to afford to do it, both in terms of time and money.

I am grateful that two such different and individual people were able to unite on all the important things...it gives me hope that we can do that in other settings as well.