Tribute To Scott

Scott, it is my pleasure to reveal to you some of the little thoughts I have had about you, and also give some I have received from Paul, your mother, and others.

I've watched you from the time you were that little kid with those long, dangling arms, and those long, skinny string-bean legs pushing your hips higher and higher, every growing day they acted like they were trying to catch up with your chest.

You have, through your growing stages brought my idolized brother, Elwin, back to me. Your dad! you're so like him.

How proud he was of you. You were the only one in the family that he chose the name for. Oh, I don't know, maybe Grayce was so tired of choosing names by the time you came - but nonetheless your dad named you. And even though he saw only your early years of athletic ability, he saw your promise of what was to come and it came! Now he wasn't only proud of your talents there, but in many other ways. In mathematics you were unbelievable. While your classmates were toiling with the two times and three times tables you could roll the seven times tables off slick as a whistle. The football screen was your best teacher.

One day, little Scott asked his mother, even though she would be real, real old, would she go to all of his games and watch him like she did for big brother Paul? She answered she would try to hobble in on her cane. Now I knew she would make it without that cane but I have really been fearing she'd be on that cane before we could get him married.

I'm sure this New Year's Eve she was really throwing the confetti!!! Hallelujah!!! But Scott always knows what he wants, it just takes time. Now Paul said, you followed him everywhere he went - like Mary's little lamb - to the locker room, to the basketball court, where the balls and bats went, when he took his girl on a date, when he took his other girl on a date ...

And I wish I had a nickel for every time I used to drive down Main and see that tall giant at the basketball hoop on the school grounds and half the town's little boys collected there - worshiping your maneuvers - fighting to get the ball and return it to you. What an idol you've been and are. And how they longed for your return from your mission to pick up the sharing times and how they too, when the time came, followed your footsteps to the mission field!

Oh dear, Grayce asked me to make this humorous. But that was a sincere thought!

Oh yes, and Grayce has confided in me about the ringing phone. When a sweet, young voice would say, "Is Scott there?" Yes, he was there, on the couch with Lisa! And Grayce would say, after much hesitation, "I'm sorry, he's not available. No, I don't think he'll be free in two hours. No, I don't think so. No, I don't think it will be later on tonight. Yes, it will be late late." And night after night truthful Grayce would have to weigh her words and give the concealed message. To the sweet young voice, to the deeper mellow voice, to the aggressive voice. And she wondered if she should just cut it off by saying, "Look honey, maybe you'd better just forget that little ol' number 864-2291 because it looks like Scott is a - is a - goner, and..." And she'd be right he's gone. He's done gone and taken her to the temple for time and all eternity. Like everything else, he's done it right. It just takes time.

And Grayce has had so many added joys from his years, him being the last one at home. But we know it will be a continuation of many little added joys coming back into your home from him. But remember Grayce, "It just takes time!" And they won't be homely!

January 10, 1986
Tribute to Scott at his wedding breakfast