allyphelps7
- Oct 1, 2020
- 4 min read

The Game of Life

Ninety four years ago today, this guy arrived earth-side. I had actually forgotten it was his birthday. Per usual. Remembering birthdays isn't one of my talents. Yesterday, I thought, "I ought to break out some of my old journal entries for a little "Throw-Back Thursday blog post!" I took my journal of the bookshelf, and I kid you not, it opened right up to this entry from June of 2014. My Dad had recently passed away and my feelings were still a bit raw. Opening to this entry today was like getting a little hug from him. I had titled it "The Game". I'll repost it here as originally written.

It's been officially dubbed "The Game". I think it was my oldest brother Alan that called it that. As many in this family are lovers of nature, we have been posting pictures on social media daily, actually several times a day, of flowers, clouds, the mountain range, sunsets...but the flower pictures...that has become a serious battle for who's is more beautiful. It has been a fun way to connect with each other over a common passion. I feel compelled to continually send pictures of the roses my mother and I picked out and planted together. Daddy was too ill to want to go rose bush shopping with us, but he always enjoyed sitting on the front porch in the Adirondack chair my brother-in-law Frank built for him, with a good close-up view of the roses in bloom and the beautiful Wasatch Front in the distance. He would have his wool poncho around his shoulders and a novel open, yet un-read, on his lap. He could no longer follow a story-line, but to have a book resting on his thighs felt as warm and soothing as the sun felt on his cheeks.

The yard is presently in full bloom. Pale peach-colored bearded Iris, divided from a beloved sister's garden, lilac bushes, and old-fashioned English roses with names that make them seem almost edible. For Memorial Day I cut several and we took them to Daddy's grave-site. I think he would have like that. He especially would have liked the candy bars we placed on the head-stone. Hershey's bar with almonds, Big Hunk, Wrigley's double-mint gum, Milky-Way. All his favorites.

He joined the Navy at seventeen years old!

(The leather jacket! That jet black hair! The Grand Canyon where he and Mama met, and where his mother and my parents oldest child Albert, who died as an infant, are laid to rest.)

I never really feel Daddy's presence at his grave-side. Mostly I feel him when I'm working in the yard. I walk slowly around the front yard, tending this plant and that, and it is almost as if he is sitting in his chair and making little comments to me. "Sure are a lot of airplanes today..." "Lots of snow still on the mountains..." "Just look at that rose-bush bloom!" Eventually I feel him stand up and turn to go back inside. Or rather, turn to go back to where he is now. I feel that same little ache that I know will never leave completely. And it's okay. It's just life. The Adirondack chair has now become the place that Natalie sits her baby boy River to document, in photos, his growth each month. I think Daddy would be pleased.

Natalie helping Grandpa pick strawberries in the garden.

Yesterday as we headed up to hike Bells Canyon, we passed a store parking lot with a display of dazzling hanging planter baskets. My eyes followed them until they were out of sight. They all seemed so artistically and carefully arranged. I knew they would most certainly be out of my price range, so I didn't even bother mentioning stopping back on the way home to purchase any; the consolation being all the flowers that are still in bloom in the yard.

About all of five minutes into our hike, I note all sorts of wildflowers. "Hold on just one second! I need to take a picture real fast!" And this...over and over, until we decide it's best for the group to keep a steady pace and I'll sprint to catch up in between picture-taking.

Today, looking through the photos, I am so pleased with all of them. I realize that ultimately, as much as I enjoy gardening and am so impressed with other's master gardening skills, really it is God who is the Master Gardener. He has allowed us to be surrounded by such incredible beauty. He gives us hands to work the soil, but He provides the rain and the sun and the artistry, so that we can experience joy and beauty and have a renewal of faith that even though things can seem so dead and beyond hope, they will come back to life again. In full beauty and glory.

So "The Game". Really not so much a game. More of a sharing of our hearts and our faith, and our love for each other and of our Maker. Daddy loved games. He loved winning games. He has won this one. Happy Birthday big guy!