2000-07-12 - 17:12 MDT

June 12,2000

One - Two - Three - Four, and Baby Makes More.

Back in 1963, Heather age 38 gave birth to our fifth child. Our other four: a man - age 19, a girl - age - 15, a girl - age 14, a boy - age 12, and the last of the family, bastion - the father an almost kid at age 42.

Our nuclear family and a great part of our extended family have always been a close, loving group, not critical or backbiting. But with the birth of our last child to a mother and father who should have known better came the upswelling of love from her brothers and sisters which was an overpowering thing. It showed me just what great children we had the good fortune to be related to.

There were no hassles, unpleasantnesses or begrudged duties. If the baby needed changing - she got changed, the kids were all experts at that. They gave her her bottle, burped her and settled her. They played with her, cuddled her, sweet talked her and made her a very giant cog in the family's gears

Each step in her progress was celebrated by us all. Each of her birthday's was more of a Holiday than most days of the year. When she got old enough to understand a bit, then her enjoyment of Christmas and Easter were yet more super Holidays.

There were times that I marveled at her, her line of thinking made me sure that maybe we had an adult offspring with mature thinking from the crib - - - it just took her a short time to master the language and learn a bit at school. One memory still precious to me is the Christas Eve she left her bottle with the cookies for Santa, thinking that he would know some child who needed one. She was surrounded with love from her birth and still allows us to surround her and her husband and two kids with as much love as they will accept.

She did well all through school and college and developed her specialty in merchandising during summer vacations. She seemed to me to be a natural born, self respecting, lady from the beginning. I can remember her looking at me when Heather and I were going out somewhere and telling me, "Daddy, that doesn't match." Early on her mother took the word of a small child who devoured magazines dealing with style and male and female styles and proper dress. Her tastes were simple but, oh, so in touch with her age and friends likes, but she had her touches to verify that she was she. She began to collect hats from the 1920's on up and wore them with a flair impossible for this man to explain. She could take anything and with a touch or two make it into a stylish, fantastic piece of female furniture.

She still has friends here in Denver that she had through Junior and Senior High Schools and some who were in college who will call and ask about her and pass on through us greetings and well wishes to her.

If I could have hand picked her husband there is no way that a better choice could have been made.

As I walked her down the aisle at her wedding I said to her, "Now my job is done, lady." She looked sidelong at me, smiled and said, "Not until you hold my baby in your arms, Daddy." The supremely ultimate compliment which brought me to the altar with tears of joy oozing down my cheeks.

It took several years and their ensuring that employment was stable, and then she had her baby, held in my arms with love both for him and his mother and a grateful prayer of thanks. I was at the birth of her second, a baby girl and watched her husband and son officiate at the weighing. I did have this baby in my arms very shortly after she made the scene.

The closeness between us all continues, she in Eugene and the rest of the family in Denver are not really separated, yes there are a few miles between us which are spanned by love and the telephone. Frequent visits by Heather and me have let us watch them grow and to take part in taking care of them. A month ago her daughter read a poem to me from my old, "Child's Garden of Verses," by Robert Louis Stevenson one of my favorite ones too. I do think that that particular book will be too worn out to pass on to her children, but it is doing its duty now. Her son and I have built models and also a "Perpetual Motion," type of contraption that worked as advertised to our delight and several Cub Scout projects.

Our daughter is and has not ever been the glue that holds our family together, but she is certainly, "The Jewel In The Crown," and still in our hearts and feelings the nestling, cuddling little one we watched over and loved all the way through.

Am I biased ? Don't think so, she does us credit and then some.

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