Faithful Footsteps

A few weeks ago, I mentioned the passing of a family friend. I wanted to record some memories of him and his family, and thought Memorial Day would be a good day to share this. Though not a soldier, he is someone whose memory I honor.

If you think about the people you know, outside of family, it is probably rare to think of an entire family for whom you have specific, even significant, memories with each individual member. I recently realized that I can do that with the Johnson family, our friends since we moved to this area over 25 years ago. Marilyn hosted my bridal shower, Nancy and I shared a random road trip to Utah one summer, Amy wrote me a note when she graduated from high school that made me feel like a million bucks, Emily has made me laugh until I cried, and anytime I could get Emily to laugh, I felt like I’d arrived. Lesley...Lesley is my oldest friend, and the memories I have with her are too numerous to count. We fought and made up at Girl's Camp, we got into mischief at slumber parties (well, as much mischief as a couple of straight-laced rule followers could anyway), and she has always made me want to be a better person.  And Phillip, when I was young, he was my friend's dad, and he was my Bishop.

When I moved home after college though, I had the opportunity to know “PJ” as more than just my friend's dad or my bishop. (I started calling him PJ at that point…now that I was an adult and Brother Johnson sounded too formal and Phillip or Phil felt too familiar. Somehow “PJ” was in between.) He was teaching the local Institute class then, so just as I was embarking on my own teaching career, once a week I was able to sit in front of this veteran teacher and learn from him and get to know him a little bit better.

Those days, I would often leave my classroom shaking my head about one comment or another I had made during class, thinking Did I really just say that?  I was (and am sometimes still) a rambler, trying to fill the empty air with something, anything. So I would watch with fascination as PJ taught; he seemed to choose his words so carefully, not worried about the silent pauses that might occur while he did so. I learned so much from that. 

Then, my first year in grad school, our Institute class covered the New Testament, which came alive for me more at that time than anytime I had read it previously…the result of PJ’s teaching.  I remember him saying, "The things you hear and learn in class should serve simply as an inspiration and motivation for personal study.” That’s the kind of teacher he was; his classroom inspired you to seek out more, to learn for yourself.

Another thing I remember him saying from that particular class was that “The events about which we read in the New Testament make up who we are...they are why we come out to church, why we do the things we do." The final speaker at his memorial service gave the exact same message…that the reasons PJ was who he was all lie in the “events about which we read in the New Testament,” which he knew to be true and therefore lived to the fullest.

Once I started teaching at BU, he would call me Professor every time we ran into each other at church, knowing full well the only person deserving of that title between us was himself. He treated me like a colleague, and I enjoyed chatting about "business" with him. I remember at our friend Mary's baby shower last summer (at the Johnson's home), in the midst of a room full of women oohing and ahhing over cloth diapers and cute clothes, he pulled up a chair next to me so we could discuss the latest university news. (Sorry, Mary!) And I'm quite certain that one of the reasons I've stayed teaching at BU the past five years has been due in some part to a well-placed word here and there in my behalf by this respected man.

At the memorial service, it was mentioned how PJ lived by the quote: "Showing up is 88% of life.” When I was going through some older journals a month ago for a YW lesson, I found a book of quotes I kept. Many of them were attributed to PJ from our time in Institute class. The quotes range from well-known sayings that were given a perfect, dry, PJ delivery:

"Big Hat, No Cattle!"

"Hit the ball and drag Charlie." (He used this well-known golf joke as an analogy to a bad marriage, and it's been stuck in my head ever since.)

"How are you going to keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Pair-ee?"

To random, funny PJ originals:

"And what if it's one of Satan's boys?"

"I am the 'stuff' man."

"It's like pouring water in a mud hole."

"Plain as a horn on a billy goat!"

"It looked like he'd been drug through a knothole."

"He was about as polished a public speaker as a trained dog." (Speaking about President Heber J. Grant)

"In these fertile times..." (Used while speaking of Julina Lambson, wife of Joseph F. Smith and midwife in over 1000 deliveries.)

To the profound, teaching moments:

"You don't start where it's easiest, you start where it's hardest."

"Go out there, stand up straight, tell 'em who you are and what you know." (This is something his father had told him.)

"Personal revelation gives us the confidence to walk toward the day we will meet God."

"Faithful footsteps will take you safely to the throne of God."

Thank you for all you taught me, PJ.