Father's Day and My Birthday

 Birthday

Six Years

June 2, 2015. 

It's been one month and one day since graduation from Weber State University. I'm all done with school but I'm not sure what I want to do for a job yet. For now, I plan to just take it easy.

The day starts out like any other. I hear my dad getting ready for work, and I pull my pillow over my head so I can block out the sounds and get a little extra sleep. I'm usually a heavy sleeper but I'm easily distracted when awake.

The day goes like any other. I spend most of the day fooling around with my laptop, though I make sure to get ready for Young Single Adult Institute that evening with my youngest brother and sister, at the Weber State Davis campus, which is precisely where my college education began.

Institute with Brother and Sister Waldron goes as well as can be expected. After class, we make sure to take time for refreshments and general hanging out. 

But then a member of our current bishopric, Brother Arrington, shows up at the Institute building and tells us he'll be chauffeuring us home. I don't think much of it until I call home to tell my parents that we're getting a ride with somebody else, and a voice at the other end answers with, "Mather residence." It turns out to be Sister Parry, one of our neighbors, ward members, and overall good friends.

By the time we get home, there's quite a crowd gathered at our front door. I sense something is up, especially when Sister Parry comes out of the house and immediately herds me and my siblings to her truck. She won't answer when I ask her what's going on as we drive to Davis Hospital. 

Now I'm scared stiff. My heart beats a mile a second and I can barely walk when we pull up at the emergency doors. My brain is conjuring all sorts of scenarios: Is it Mom? Is it Dad? Are they both hurt? Was there an accident? Did someone break into our house? Was it a heart attack? A stroke? A bad fall down the stairs? I knew Dad had been having heart trouble the last few years, and Mom had recovered from cancer not too long ago, so neither of them had the most ideal health. 

In my case, ignorance is most definitely not bliss. 

Several other members from our ward greet us at the hospital, and finally a tearful Mom comes to us with a handful of doctors and a grief counselor. 

The very first words out of Mom's mouth: "Dad's dead!"

It's not until later, after we've had some time to process the awful news, that I get the full story. After Mom dropped us off at Institute, she was a little late getting home because there was a lot of construction work going on; they were "remodeling" part of the parking lot of my old junior high school, and fine-tuning the intersection while they were at it.

When Mom did get home, she found Dad lying on the living room floor. He didn't respond when she spoke to him, and when she got a closer look, his eyes were half-open and his lips were a strange grayish-blue color. 

The paramedics were optimistic, as they probably should be. But despite working on him for almost an hour straight, he was already gone. It turns out he died from "myocardial infarction," meaning his heart stopped altogether. He simply came home and collapsed in our living room while we were out. 

It was a mercifully quick death, they said, but we're not sure if he was in any pain in those last few minutes of his life. 

He was only 57 years old, and this was barely two months after his last birthday. 

It also turns out that his dad, Grandpa Mather, whom I'd never met, died in the same fashion at the same age. 

This was something I never expected to happen, not this soon. 

Now here we are, six years later, and it still doesn't seem real. While the pain itself has softened, we've never stopped missing Dad (Mom sure hasn't) and I often wonder how different life would be if he were here now. 

I've never had to once question where he is now or whether I'll see him again. What's bothered me above all, as I mentioned earlier, was why it had to be so soon, why Dad couldn't have lived another 20 or 30 years at the very least. 

Even so, I find great comfort in the promise of life after death, of eternal families, and of knowing the family Dad's reunited with on the other side. He's with both his parents again along with his siblings who died as babies (Grandma Mather lost a surprising handful of babies) and now Mom's parents have joined him. 

When Grandma and Grandpa Dahl passed away in 2019, within just three weeks of each other, my very first thought was, "Say hello to Dad and give him a great big hug for me."

Love you and miss you so much, Dad.