the steady eddy Scotty.

{The Almost Mister and Misses - Engaged - Christmas 1979}

Once, when I was a senior in high school, Coden Copple told me that my dad had nice skin.

Weird. Then, it was weird. It’s still weird now. But it’s true. My dad does have nice skin – that nice, sort of non-wrinkle kind. My dad is young looking. Not as young looking as he once was – I mean, gosh, he looked like a twelve year-old boy when they got married. But still, now, years (and years) later, to me, he still looks young.

And it seems appropriate too, because it's like he never changes (something that he, no doubt, gained from his growing up years at the Parke Circle estate). Someday, I will tell you about that house and how it never really changed at all either, until one day, the last Dixon moved away. But that is for another time.

My father. My dad. He is calming to me - all that is steady. Unchanging.

As I loaded the dishes the night before I left my home in the country, I washed a Tupperware sandwich container with my dad’s leftover crumbs from lunch. Do you know that Tupperware container has belonged to my parents ever since I can remember, and probably longer? For years, that man has taken Great Harvest Honey Whole Wheat bread to work with him – work at the same corporate offices of the same company for the last twenty-four years. He gets up early, reads his scriptures, then exercises on the mini-trampoline downstairs while he flips through the channels on the ever-so-ancient wooden-box tv.

He probably takes his showers the same length of time. He rolls the blow-dryer up the same way, twisting the cord around the handle and around the base. He even asks me the same questions every time he makes his delicious breakfast burritos (a treat worth the four-hour drive home, to say the least).

And our conversation goes like this:

Him: So, Hollie, what kinds of things do you like on your breakfast burritos?

Me: Oh, everything is fine with me dad. I like everything.

Him: You like corn? I thought you didn’t like corn in them.

Me: Oh no, dad, corn is fine. That’s fine.

Him: Okay, well, what about tomatoes?

Me: Oh, yeah, tomatoes are just fine. Really, go ahead and put everything in.

And so on it goes, every single time.

Then he turns around and whips those babies up, and in no time, we are all sitting around the same table just like we did when we were young.

That man (my father) is steady. Steady with other things too - priceless things. Things that are pure. He is patient. He is kind. He is worthy of the priesthood. He is respectful. His hands are warm. Comforting. Even amidst the pain and craziness of my labor, I remember seeing him by the elevators as we were walking around, trying to hurry along the coming of our firstborn. He had just arrived and I went straight to him and he encircled me in his arms. I sobbed into his shoulder. And he just held me.

And how many other times have I leaned into him? Cried to him? Felt strength and comfort as he laid his hands, time and time again, upon my head to give me countless fathers’ blessings? And worthily so.

It seems to me I am blessed, even blessed beyond measure, or compare. And it seems that the one Father in Heaven has orchestrated my life, and all lives, so entirely that He sent me to the very home I was meant to be in.

Oh, my dad. I love all of his funnies, all of his ways. I love laughing with him. I love that he loves my own son so much that he changes diapers, even the dirty ones, whenever it's requested. I love corn in my breakfast burritos. Tomatoes are okay too. I love holding his hand, and kissing his cheek. Gary Scott Dixon, dad, I really do love you.

The End.