John's Remarks

There are a lot of things that I really admire about my dad. Two of the major things were how much he loved to laugh and how he could always see the best in people.

Dad loved to laugh, he would do silly things just to see people smile. One of the first things he got as a dentist was a plaque that said, “May the floss be with you”. He especially loved these plays on words. He loved puns, he could come up with a pun any time with pretty much anything you said. He smiled through a lot of his trials and his treatments.

The second thing that I love about my dad is how he always saw the best in everybody, no matter what. When I was a teenager I saw it as I got most of my hours visiting friends of his in jail, people who had made mistakes but he saw them as people in need of a friend, and a helping hand. He was always able to see their potential, and see them the way God saw them. I saw it as he helped friends with addictions, family problems, and money problems. He got some of them professional help, some of them jobs, and some of them both. Everyone who came into contact with dad new that he loved them and that no matter what he would continue to love them.

I saw his love for others as I helped him in his dental office. Many times people came in needing more work than they could afford and almost always left with more work done than they had paid for. He never really cared about the money but only about the people that he could help. Often he would stay long hours doing work he wasn’t getting paid for, to make sure that others could go home smiling.

I saw it in his charity work through share-a-smile. Dad made a lot of trips to foreign countries to help those who couldn’t afford dental care, but the experience I remember most was in the charity clinic here in Provo. I was assisting at that point when an older lady came in to get a set of dentures fitted. She had taken up drugs at some point in her past, she had ruined her teeth, her relationships, and her life. She, with help, had gotten over the drugs and was trying to turn her life around, she had no money, and few friends. My dad had become one of her friends, he knew her by name and asked her about what she had been doing since he last saw her. We worked on her teeth for a while and my dad moved on to another patient. She turned to me and with her wonderful new smile she started to cry and told me that she could never thank him enough, not for the new teeth (which she loved), but for believing in her when no one else did.

Dad believed in everybody. He knew that good could always overcome the bad and that no one was ever too far gone. He had a love for everybody that I hope someday to be able to learn. My dad exemplified the savior in his life. He laughed, he loved, and he lived the kind of life that I hope to live. I love my dad.