The last time Jill and I went on a trip together with just
the two of us was 18 months ago. It’s
been a long time! So we have been
planning to break that horrible streak this spring. I had two conferences that were good
candidates – Philadelphia in February or Nashville in March. Like most people, she preferred Nashville but
it conflicted with the kids’ spring break, so she chose Philly. We booked the tickets.
The week of the trip was anything but calm. Jill and I were working fast and furious to
get everything place. Especially Jill. Leaving presented some unique
challenges. Usually Jill’s sister, Cheryl,
is our “go-to” because her kids are the same ages as ours, but she had another
family staying with her and a neighbor’s funeral to help with. We also thought about Jill’s mother, Grammie,
but her 94-year-old father wasn’t doing so well and we knew she might have to
fly to his hometown of Billings at any moment.
The next best option was to let our kids watch our kids. We
have a 17-year-old, a 15-year-old and a 14-year-old, plus our two younger
children. Surely they were old/mature
enough to take care of themselves for a few days. Actually, let me rephrase that. We knew the three older children could survive
without us, and might even be giddy with the lack of supervision. But would they take care of their younger
siblings?
Because this is unusual, we had several family meetings
going over the plan and the schedules with the kids – and emphasizing the need
for the older siblings to “step it up.”
“Here’s when we leave … here’s the schedule … this is what you, you and
you need to be doing on this date at this time … this is who is going to drive
you to school or practice … this is who is going to unlock the computers for
homework [yes, we keep our computers under pretty strict guard],” etc.
etc.
Our flight was scheduled to leave at 10am on Wednesday. When we woke up that morning, we learned that
Jill’s grandfather in Billings who wasn’t doing well – Grandpa Leland (“Bub”)
Wells – had passed away the night before.
We were sad, but it was not unexpected.
Initial reports were that the funeral was to be in about a week. But as we drove to the airport, rumors
started to fly around that the funeral would be on Saturday while we were in
Philly. Then when we were parking, the
rumors were confirmed – Grandma Wells was wanted the funeral on Saturday. The debate was over.
That put Jill in a real bind. Go with her awesome husband to Philly or
cancel her flight and try ti find a way to Billings. She had been looking forward to this Philly
trip for several months. But she didn’t
want to miss her grandpa’s funeral. When
we checked in at Southwest, they were very kind and helped look for returning
flights on Friday, but none were available and/or convenient. And American Airlines was pretty much the
same. Nor were they cheap! Finally we found flights on Frontier Airlines
to Denver from Philly first thing Friday morning. We decided that was our best bet; we could
rent a car from there. We checked in our
luggage (a suitcase and a roller bag) and hustled to security. By then we were cutting it really close.
By the time we made it through security, check-in counter
was paging our names. And, by then, we both
had a change of heart and decided it wouldn’t be that fun of a trip if I were
there by myself and/or we were only in Philly for one day two nights only to
return early Friday morning to make another trip to Billings. So, at the gate we canceled our flight and
asked Southwest to pull our suitcases. Again,
everyone was very helpful. One suitcase
made it back to us. The other was already
on the plane and too hard to retrieve, and it took a trip to Philly without us.
The rest of the day we scrambled to cancel our Frontier
Airlines flight (talk about night and day customer service compared to
Southwest) and find a way to Billings. Cheryl,
who missed her calling as a travel agent, quickly found cheap flights to Denver
and cheap rental cars (we needed two for all of the AZ relatives going to
Billings) that could take us the rest of the way. With good weather forecasted for the next
five days, we all booked flights to Denver for 6 a.m. the next morning.
Meanwhile, I worked from my home office that afternoon. While I was working, Josh returned home from
school. When he walked in, I greeted him
from the other room: “Hey Josh.”
He responded “Hey dad.”
Without another word he worked on Jill’s computer and sent
it to the printer in my office. He
walked in a few minutes later. “Hey dad,
can you sign this for me?” he asked, handing me a parental permission form for
volleyball. He acted as if he wasn’t
surprised at all to see me back home.
I took the paper from him and looked up at him with a
curious smile. “Are you surprised to see
me?”
He looked down at me.
“Oh.” The wheels were
turning. “Yeah, when are you
leaving?”
“I already left,” I said.
Apparently Josh either forgot I was leaving that morning or
thought I was leaving later in the day. Or,
this is probably more accurate, he forgot entirely that we were leaving. Could he survive without me? Undoubtedly.
Could he be trusted to take care of his siblings?
So much for all of our family meetings and parental speeches
about “this is the time for you to show us you can step up and take care of
each other.” Josh wasn’t surprised at
all to see me at home, which means the schedule Jill meticulously prepared was
nowhere on his radar screen.
As for the rest of the story, the other kids – Sam, Lily and
Anna (and even Zach) – were all shocked to see us when they returned from
school that day. So, maybe collectively,
they would survive after all.
We spent the evening together as a family, did some more
last-minute arrangements, and by 4:00 a.m. the next morning we were headed back
to the airport. I had hoped my bag was
back from Philly, but it wasn’t scheduled to arrive until later in the
day. So, Jill and I boarded the plane
with several family members and enjoyed a long day of traveling by plane (two
hours), train (5 minutes), bus (10 minutes), and automobile (8 hours). By 6 pm we were in Billings with Jill’s
family.
Lots of people have shared lots of memories of Grandpa Bub
the last few days. He lived one of those
lives that causes all of us to reflect on our own life. Not that he accomplished some amazing feat or
did things that only the rest of us can dream about (and feel bad that we aren’t
that cool or smart or skilled). To the contrary,
he did the simple things that bring happiness that most of us forget and
overlook in the business of life.
I interacted with Grandpa a lot over the years, usually in
passing at a wedding or a reunion or a family trip to Billings. Although I don’t have one of those “I
remember when he took me fishing” stories, I do have a lot more memories of him
than I do of my other grandfathers. (One
of my grandfathers passed away before I was born and the other passed away when
I was five.)
My memories are all positive. He wasn’t fancy or eloquent. He was quiet.
And in his later years, he was even more quiet and often just liked to
listen (to the extent he could hear you) and not talk. The only exception was in bearing his
testimony of the Savior. It was like a floodgate
opening and couldn’t say enough about how much he loved the Gospel and His
Savior. It brought him so much happiness
and he couldn’t stand the thought of anyone else not being as happy has he was.
He experienced just about every trial in life, but always had
a smile and a kind word. The thing I
heard the most about him this week was that he never met a person he didn’t
like and was very generous. He had his
own business most of his life and offered jobs to many men who were without
work even if his own business was struggling to make ends meet.
I think the best way to summarize his life is that he was a
true disciple of Christ. I’m grateful I
knew him as my grandfather and my children have such a great man to emulate in
their lives.
Some trips are worth putting on hold
 |
| At the funeral with Grandma Wells. My dark suit was in Philly. |
