The Happiest Place on Earth

This past Thursday was my Mom's birthday.  Sadly, I spent the day traveling to Portland and then listening to historians talk about various and sundry aspects of the American West, meaning that I didn't have the opportunity to celebrate with her on that special day.  Worse still, I haven't gotten her a birthday present.  When I asked her what she wanted, she reminded me that she wanted me to write up a memory of my grandparents (Nana and Papa) for a book of memories that she is compiling for my Papa's 100th birthday this coming year.  And so I thought I would take the opportunity to use this blog to fulfill her birthday request.

Simply put, I had the greatest grandparents a boy could ever have in my Grandma and Grandpa Dowdle and my Nana and Papa Haycock.  I vividly remember trips about two miles south to my Grandma Dowdle's house in Orem (sadly, cancer claimed my Grandpa Dowdle before I knew him well) and an hour north to my Nana and Papa Haycock's house in Bountiful.  These trips were the highlight of my young life.

I never went to Disneyland but for me, Bountiful was the happiest place on earth.  Growing up, I had a lot of insecurities about my small size and my slow speech.  It seemed like friends were always bigger, stronger, faster, and even smarter than I was.  But when we went to visit Nana and Papa's house in Bountiful, I was the most loved boy in the world.  My Nana and Papa who were used to the presence of dignitaries treated me like I was an honored dignitary in their house.  I felt like I was their most prized grandchild--the reality was that each of us was the most prized grandchild.  My grandfather who had enjoyed the company of Prophets listened to my every word, paid attention to what my interests were, and went out of his way to support those interests.

When I first became drawn to the subject of history during my 5th grade discussion of the Civil War, my Nana and Papa scoured their private bookshelves and then the shelves of bookstores to find books on the Civil War that they might add to my small library of materials on the subject.  Some of the first books I owned for myself were these books on the American Civil War detailing things like uniform styles, battle locations, weaponry, etc.  They made a historian out of me simply by caring about a subject that had seemed to strike a chord with me.  To this day, I can't think of the Civil War or Lincoln without thinking about my Nana and Papa.

My Papa's final month is etched into my memory forever.  On a Sunday afternoon in January, my Dad made the decision that we ought to go up to Bountiful--an unusual decision for a school night, but one that we welcomed with joy.  Knowing of our Nana and Papa's love for feeding their grandchildren, we worried that he would want to go out to eat on the Sabbath in order to alleviate our Nana of any challenges.  We packed sandwiches so that we wouldn't have to go out to eat.  But when we got there, my Papa insisted that we go to Chuck-A-Rama as a family.  Words cannot express how grateful I am that we went to Chuck-A-Rama with Nana and Papa that night.  The next day, Dad called us all together in the living room to tell us that Papa had suffered a massive heart attack the previous day and that he and mom needed to rush to LDS Hospital in Salt Lake.  After an open-heart surgery and a subsequent stroke, he was gone on the morning of February 25, 1994.  The news that morning broke my 13 year old heart.  Although I had grown up in a strong and active home, I had not yet come to my own testimony and understanding of the reality of the atonement and the resurrection.  All I knew was that the grandfather I adored was now gone.

That moment drove my soul.  Two years later, I began my serious study of the Book of Mormon and the scriptures and began to find the comfort that I had needed with the death of my Papa.  As I learned more and more about the Church and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I learned more about my Papa and the cause he had devoted his life to.  In the process, I began to find myself and the sense of security that I had always felt at Nana and Papa's home in Bountiful.  Twenty-one years later, so much of my reason for studying the history of the Church goes back to my love for my Papa Haycock.  Twenty-one years later, my Nana and Papa Haycock and my Grandma and Grandpa Dowdle continue to encourage me in the fields that I love.  As much as anything, this encouragement burnishes my testimony that this life is not the sum total of eternity, but rather a blip on the screen, following which we will be greeted by loved ones who never truly left our sides and certainly never stopped caring about the aims and accomplishments of their children and grandchildren.  And what a reunion that coming day will be!

Brett