The Water’s Deep

Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.

Robert Frost

Last week my husband stole a chicken. I was headed to a school board meeting when I spied him trying to heft it into the back of our Nissan as I passed the park across from our house. It was heavy. He’d managed to drag it to the car, but he was having trouble lifting it high enough to slide it into the luggage area, so I stopped and offered him a hand. He grunted “yes” in response. I checked around to be sure there were no West Jordan police lurking nearby. He obviously had never given a thought to the idea that his theft might have an illegal element.

A couple of months ago, Son #6 hired my husband to be a nanny for his two-year old son and four year-old daughter a couple of days a week. It’s a convenient arrangement since my son’s family have been living in our basement till their new house is finished. Most mornings, my husband takes the kids to the park for an hour or so. Turns out, he is a very solicitous guardian, and the chicken in question was the kind with a heavy duty spring about 16 inches high off the ground to which was attached a brightly colored cartoon chicken head, a couple of dowls for tiny hands to clutch and foot pads short enough for little legs. A child who chooses this playground ride can rock back and forth with satisfying abandon.

But the bracing under the chicken toy was loose. My husband’s eyes had narrowed. “That’s one drunk chicken,” he said as it teetered precariously when the two-year old climbed on. Not safe enough for his grandkids! So, he brought his toolbox over and with considerable effort disconnected the chicken from it’s rusting base. Once he got it back to the garage, he cleaned and oiled the bolts, tightened them, then inspected each section to be sure it was working at least as well as when it was originally installed. I expect a call any day from the Parks and Rec Department saying, “West Jordan thanks you.”

When Daughter #1 was born, we loved her with a fierceness which startled both of us. I remember waking from dream that he and I were floating with the baby on a lake or ocean or some other limitless body of water. No sign of rescue in sight. That night I made my husband promise that if such a nightmare ever came true, he would let me drown and save the baby if that were the only choice he had. He agreed without question.

Which explains what happened when Son #6 was a senior in high school, and his phone call for help awoke us long after we’d gone to bed. Son #6 and several friends—of both sexes—had chosen that night to explore a well-known cave in Utah County—without mentioning it to us, of course. The kids got in and out of the cave OK, but our car (which they had piled into for the trip) had a flat tire, or a broken radiator, or something. (In my experience, cars are always complaining about their aches and pains.) The teenagers had called every other parent in hopes of rescue because Son #6 knew the Wrath of Heaven would come down on him if his dad found out he’d injured the family car. No other parent was interested in such a mission.

We were Son #6’s last hope. At two o’clock in the morning, my husband put on his oil-stained work clothes and headed out. Once all the kids were safely back home, he and Son #6 went back to figure out how to get the car home. It wasn’t a limitless body of water, but my husband has never once failed to come when one of his children calls—as promised. (I admit there was often some grumbling involved, however.)

When my husband and I were volunteers in a Hispanic branch of our church, we were asked to deliver a donated fridge to a family who had moved to Provo. The dad was raising four children alone—his wife had passed away some years before. I remember visiting them one evening while they still lived in the area. All four kids were seated around the kitchen table doing homework as we talked with the dad.

The next year his oldest daughter won a Presidential scholarship to BYU which paid for all her educational costs except housing. There was no way this dad could finance such an expense. His solution? He quit his job at the auto mechanic shop, found a new job in Provo, and rented a house just a few blocks from the campus so his daughter could walk to school. While my husband and this dad unloaded the fridge into their new house, I watched this dad’s three younger kids sitting at that same kitchen table helping each other with math assignments at their new school.

My sister was still in high school when she and her best friend headed to a Saturday night stake dance. The priesthood leader in charge called my dad, a High Councilman, to report that–in the days when mini-skirts were popular–my sister’s skirt was too short, and she needed to be escorted home. My dad showed up at the church, called my sister over, and inspected length of the skirt carefully. “Well,” he said. “Fortunately, she has really great legs.” Then he ushered her out of the church and promptly took she and her buddy out to dinner.

When the water’s deep or the bridge is gone, a good dad can make all the difference in whether we sink or swim.