Procrastination

I haven't submitted anything for my class for almost a month!! My next assignment is 10 pages on my parents--and I just haven't been able to figure out how to tell my story about them. I would start, and then start again, and then I just stopped. I mean--how do you start? Where do you start? How can I possibly get down in words the wonderfullness of my parents? The feelings of waking up, toasty under the covers in a cold room, to the smells of bacon cooking and pancakes and maple syrup? Who knew that you can relate bacon smells to parental love?  Everything I wrote seemed bland and listed and boring compared to that! (Ironically, I talked about this very subject with my dad a few weeks ago, and he said that scientific studies do show that bacon smells actually are a very good way to wake people up!)

 Ammon wanted to eat lunch at 10:30 this morning, and then he went down for his nap early, so I am finding myself with extra time. I decided to stop procrastinating and started another rough draft. So that's what you are getting today. My parents are amazing. This is not. But it's a start; a work in progress, and not finished. If you want to smell the bacon and feel the warmth of a farm home in the winter--you might just have to go there and visit. They love visitors, and they would invite you in, and then you'll know why I've been procrastinating.

This is the first picture I found with them. 

Connie and Doug, Mom and Dad

The first words she said to him were, “Ya big flirt,” as she walked by the tall, thin man with the bike leaning against a dorm window, talking to the girls inside. They would end up in the same Family Home Evening group at BYU. Later, he would define them both as “social retards.” Their relationship grew as most relationships do; they became friends, then confidants, and finally, deeper feelings emerged and commitments were made.

Connie Goss was smart, athletic, and as the third of nine children (seven living)—she was in control of her destiny. She graduated with an associate’s degree from Ricks College, and then went to BYU to graduate with a Bachelor’s in Elementary Education, with a minor in Bilingual Education. She got through school with a full tuition at both schools, and worked as a part-time, early-morning janitor.

Doug Foster was a science-loving runner. He ran track at Cobleskill College, and counted on his running prowess to get him into a 4-year university; however, he over-trained for the big meet, and because of an injury, was unable to place high enough to catch a scout’s eye. His coach reassured him: he was friends with the track coach at BYU, and could get Doug onto the BYU track team. He warned him, “Watch out for those Mormons, though; they’ll try to convert you.” Doug signed the honor code, shaved off his facial hair, cut his curly shoulder-length locks (he says he looked like Napoleon Dynamite—and he kind of did), and promised to stop drinking alcohol and coffee. He says the only thing that was really hard to give up was the coffee.

His first week at BYU, someone from Doug’s dorm offered to help him find a Lutheran church to attend, but since he had never been active in the Lutheran church, Doug declined the offer and instead decided to accompany his roommates to their LDS services that first Sunday. During the second week of school, the Sunday School President called to ask him to give a 3-minute talk. Doug said yes! He had taken one week of the mandatory Book of Mormon religion class, and they had covered the first few chapters of 1 Nephi; Doug gave a short talk on the relationship between Nephi and Lehi, and the importance of listening to your parents. He was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints a few months later, in March of 1978. I have always wondered what Dad’s Cobleskill track coach thought of that!

One of my favorite stories is Mom and Dad’s engagement. They chaperoned a youth church dance, and afterwards went to get something to eat. They were sitting in a booth when Doug said, “So what are we going to do?” Connie said, “Do what?” He said, “You know, how are we going to make it?” She thought, “Did I just get engaged?” Luckily, 33 years of marriage has improved their communication skills!

They were poor and in love. He melted down his class ring and made it into two matching wedding bands and a thin engagement ring with a pearl. They are beautiful, formed from loving sacrifice, and there aren’t any other rings in the world like them.

They were married on April 22, 1980 in Mesa, AZ temple, and I was born less than 13 months later, on Mom’s 22^nd birthday—after nine very sick months for Mom. Ben surprised them 15 months after that, and Dennis, Rene, and Brent were to follow over the next twelve years, until finally, our family of seven was complete in 1993.

I did not grow up in a traditional LDS home. Dad was doing janitorial work in the early morning, teaching school all day as a biology teacher, and then coaching track in the evening—and still, his paycheck was barely covering their small trailer mortgage and other small living expenses. At one point, they did not have enough money to fix the car, and Dad snow-shoed the two miles to work during the freezing Idaho winter months. They decided that the best thing for the family would be for Mom to enter the workforce, and for as long as I can remember, Mom worked either part or full-time teaching.

 Mornings worked like this: Mom helped get kids dressed and got the girls’ hair done, Dad made breakfast and packed lunches. After school, chores and household duties were split pretty evenly (and as kids got older, we contributed). Dad did a lot of the cooking and cleaning. We like to tease Mom about not knowing how to use a vacuum cleaner that had been purchased many months previously. My future husband had a lot to live up to my Dad’s example!

Mom has always been the rock—the listener, the patient, the one that wouldn’t get mad. And I would try! On my 18^th birthday I told her I was going to go buy a pack of cigarettes, just because I could show my I.D. She said, “Well, if that’s how you want to spend your money—go for it.” I didn’t. I did show my I.D. at a jewelry store for a second ear piercing that I knew she wasn’t thrilled with, and when I showed her my new holes she just smiled.

Ironically, my favorite memory is the one time I remember Mom losing her temper. She wishes I would forget it—or at least never bring it up again. She and I had been disagreeing about something—the topic, I actually did manage to forget! We must have started our conversation in the kitchen and moved into the living room, because she was holding a recipe box filled with 3x5 cards. Her volume increased slightly, and I looked at her and said something to further rankle her—and she threw the recipe box down, scattering cards all over the living room floor. I looked at her with surprise, and looked back a me, silent for a few seconds, and then she started laughing, “Well, that was a dumb thing to do. Help me pick them up, please?” I think I started laughing, too, and we picked up the cards together, our argument forgotten. I love this moment because it showed me that she was human—but then she was quick to laugh it off and make things better. Classic Mom.

Not only do I share Dad’s physical features, but I also have more of his personality than Mom’s calm. We are pessimistic (I like to say realistic), easily stressed, and we don’t like to sit still. Dad recently said he has mellowed out over the years, and he has. He was the one with the quick-temper, and I knew not to make him upset. He is also very humble. Once, in Phoenix, he asked me to lift the garage door so that he could carry a box in. In those days (or at least those days for us), you had to manually lift the garage door. I was probably seven, and was unable to lift it high enough to clear my dad’s 6’3” frame. He walked right into the garage door—and because he walks briskly and with purpose, it was probably not a soft bonk to the head. He was unhappy with me, and I went away crying and confused—after all, I had tried to be obedient. That evening, I returned from a baptism and found on my dresser a vase full of flowers and a card with a nice apology on it. This experience, and many throughout my life, taught me that even when we make mistakes, we can admit to them, apologize, and then set out to do better.

I don’t remember Mom and Dad fighting. Ever. It still amazes me, even though I know that they must have had their disagreements; they either worked them out quietly or waited for privacy. I asked Dad about it a few years ago, and he said that early in their marriage he decided that in most cases, it was just easier to do what Mom wanted then to spend the time and emotional energy arguing about it. This concept, while true, is not very easy to actually put into practice!