When my dad cried

I only remember seeing my dad cry twice.

It's not that he was against boys crying.  In spite of his profession, he wasn't running around celebrating MACHO all the time.  He didn't need to.  And we always used to kid him that he was way, way, way in touch with his girly side.  Dude likes to garden and buy clothes and iron.

So there's that.

But if he did much crying, I never saw it.  The first time was the day I got married, and now that I think about it, he was probably crying for joy.  YES!  THANK YOU, KEN CANNON!

The other time was a few months after Becky died.  I found out that Becky's father, Tom, was giving a talk in church down in Provo, so I decided to attend the meeting.  I thought Tom might feel like Becky was there in spirit when he saw me there.

So I went.  And Tom, of course, gave a lovely thoughtful talk, which was very much a Tom thing to do.  He was such a literate man.  On my way out of the meeting, I ran into my own father, who was on the way to his meetings.  Tom's ward and my parents' ward met in the same building--just at different times.

The coach was surprised to see me.

"What are you doing here?"  he asked.

When I told him I was there to hear Tom speak, his eyes filled with tears.  He didn't say anything else.  He didn't need to.