Mom and dad came home from their mission the middle of April, 1994. It had been a long 18 months, at least for me, and a lot had happened while they were gone, but once they got home it seemed like they had never left. Funny.
Mom and dad had never met Moe, and that was perhaps the most exiting thing about them coming home, at least for me. The funny thing was, while looking through Moe's scouting pictures one day we came across a shot he had taken at a District Scout Jamboree a couple of years earlier. It was just a picture of all the boys and their leaders, there were two or three thousand people there, milling around. It was cool, because they used the parachute Moe bought at the army surplus store for their tent. People walked by all day asking if it was headquarters, and they had to tell them no, it just looked like it. Anyway, in this particular picture a man was standing in front of Moe, his back to him, and I swear it was my dad! Something about the way he stood, the shape of his head, the fit of his uniform: I'd seen dad like that a million times before. I called all the kids to look, and they agreed it had to be grandpa. A few pictures later we found another shot from the same time. In this shot dad was standing off to one side, still with his back to the camera, but at a different angle. It had to be him! It was strange to think that Moe had actually been that close to my dad before we ever met. ePrhaps he had even talked with him.
After telling my parents about Moe in letters for almost a year, it was exciting, and a little bit scary for me to actually introduce him to them. I'd known they would love him, he was just that kind of guy, and they didn't disappoint me. Of course, mom assured me that she had loved Moe ever since I had told her that he loved Linnea. (It was a little hard for her, a 15 year old, to accept a new man in her family, but instead of putting Moe off, it seemed to make him that much more anxious to win her acceptance.)
I had hoped that we would be able to go to the Temple and be sealed as soon as mom and dad got home, but that was before the Church's new policy, making it necessary for men to get clearance from the First Presidency to be sealed a second time. Moe had done the paper-work, but it still needed to be approved by our Bishop and Stake President and sent up to Salt Lake, then we had to wait for them to review it and give their approval.
Right after mom and dad got home they turned around and flew up to Salt Lake to be with my little sister Sharon for the birth of her second child. Sharon and Colton had lived in mom and dad's side of our double house while they were on their mission, but right after Moe and I got married and I retired from teaching, they moved to Utah so Colton could go to architecture school.
Once mom and dad got home again, summer was on us, and dad was especially busy catching up on all the things that needed to be done around the place. But he was having a hard time finding the energy. For a year and a half they had lived in Germany, working hard and freezing. Mom had worked mostly in the mission office, but dad had been in charge of keeping the missionary apartments in order, and it had meant a lot of traveling and hard work. He had learned how to drive on the autobahn, had got a difficult to obtain German drivers license, had received his first and only German driving ticket, and had badly burned his hand trying to put out a grease fire the young missionaries accidentally set in the office kitchen. When he came home, he surprised us all by still driving fast (once the German way of racing up and down the country gets in your blood I guess it's hard to get out) but he had a hard time finding the get up and go to do all the other projects he wanted to do.
Their mission had brought mom and dad closer together. They had always been a happy, loving couple, but now they seemed truly united. I guess working together twenty-four-seven will do that to you, and I was jealous. I wished Moe and I could have that closeness. As soon as they got settled in they volunteered to be Temple workers, so Friday night and Saturday mornings they spent working there, which meant there was that much more for them to do during the rest of the week, but dad really seemed to be dragging.
By the end of July mom decided he had to go see a doctor. They sent him to the hospital for an angiogram, something was not right with his heart. All us sisters went to the hospital to wait with mom while dad had the procedure. When the doctor finally game out, the news was mixed. Dad had major blockages in his heart and he needed to have double bypass surgery immediately, but the surgeon assured us that he was a good candidate and he should do well.
The surgery ended up being on mother's birthday. Dad had never been one to shower gifts on mom, but this year he was worried.
“Gale, will you and the girls go to the store and find something special for mom for her birthday,” he asked me when I peeked in to see him after he woke up from the angiogram. “I don't care how much it costs, just make sure it's something she will like.”
We were happy to oblige, and my sisters and I found a beautiful sapphire heart pendant we thought mom would like, but it made us a little sad, and a little frightened, when we gave it to her. We were sitting in the waiting room, all of us brothers and sisters and mom, waiting for word on how the operation had gone. We sure hoped dad hadn't had a premonition, and wanted to give mom the gift because he was afraid he wouldn't make it through the surgery.
That was one somber day. We tried to be upbeat, we even brought some of our favorite card games and treats so we could make the hours go by quicker and take mom's mind off dad, but it was hard. At the same time, it was lovely. We sat and visited, telling stories and reminiscing about all the wonderful times we'd had together as a family. Moe came after work to sit and wait with me, and it felt good to have my own husband there beside me, giving me strength and comfort.
The brothers and brothers-in-law had given dad a Priesthood blessing the night before, and it had been comforting and positive, so we weren't really worried, but just the same the hours dragged we were all wired before the doctor finally walked into the waiting room to talk to mom.
“Mr. Russell is fine,” he told mother, and she visibly relaxed. “The surgery went well, and he should make a full recovery.”
How relieved we were. We needed dad, and we were blessed to be able to have him with us for a long time to come.
One of the funny things that came from dad's heart problem was the assurance that mom and dad were actually very healthy people. The dietician sat down with mom shortly after his surgery to go over dad's diet. He explained about eating fruits and vegetables and avoiding red meats. Mom listened hard and took everything he told her to heart, but when he was done she was in kind of a quandary.
“If I start cooking like this,” she told him, “I'll have to add in more fat than we are used to, and we'll be eating more meat than normal.”
Mom had always avoided fried, fatty foods, and for many years she had looked for healthy recipes and ways to cook. Dad also was very health conscious. Years earlier he had decided he was putting on a little weight through his middle, so he had taken to riding his bike to work every day. After retiring he made a habit of walking and exercising, on top of working outside on our two acre yard every day.
They asked the doctor what they could have done more to avoid dad's heart problems.
“To tell you the truth,” the doctor told them, “diet and exercise are only part of the equation leading to heart disease. Some of it is due to heredity, and although we don't understand it completely, it appears that there is a correlation between stress and heart problems, as well. Has your life been very stressful?”
That was a funny question. Would you say that someone who spent his life working with teenagers and irate parents, most of the time dealing with their discipline and behavior problems, stressful? Or how about spending fourteen years in a bishopric, presiding over 600 ward members, raising six children, building houses, subdividing land, and just living stressful? Of course. Thank goodness we lived in a time when doctors knew how to fix clogged arteries and mend tired hearts.
Dad was in the hospital during the first of August, then recovering for the next six weeks. Moe had received permission to be sealed again, but we waited for dad to be well so he could be there with us. It was the end of September before we finally made it. It seemed that I had been waiting for so long, but at last my dream came true. Mom and Dad were there with me, and grandma Johnson and my brothers and sisters, as well as Moe's parents and sister, and our aunts and uncles. Somehow, coming close to loosing dad made our sealing that much more poignant. I wanted, more than anything in the world, to be sealed to my husband for time and for eternity. That night, even though I was not wearing a wedding dress or carrying a bouquet, was the most important night of my life, a turning point, a defining moment that changed our future forever. We were now an eternal family, no matter what happened.
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