Mark Williams Blood was born June 13, 1953 in Salt
Lake City, Utah, to Melvin and Margaret Blood, the fourth of five children. He lived next door to his mom's parents in an area now known as Holladay, Utah, on what was once a large fruit orchard. Whenever I asked about his childhood, he would talk about how kind and quiet his father was; and how his dad never raised his voice or yelled. He got teary-eyed whenever he would talk about his mother, a kind-hearted and nurturing woman who was always serving someone. Of all his
siblings, he was the closest to his sister Barbara, although he said he remembered teasing her a lot growing up. He served a mission in Tokyo, Japan from 1972 to 1974 and graduated in chemical
engineering from University of Utah. While at University of Utah he met and married the love of his life, Sara Cox, in the Salt Lake Temple. They have ten children and 25 grandchildren.
In preparing to write this, I went through memories that my siblings sent me of my dad, both recently and also for his 53rd birthday about 15 years ago. There were several themes that repeated
themselves. First, he loved gardening. Elizabeth remembers how beautiful his garden was, how long he spent tending it, and how when she first started gardening, her dad was the first person she talked to when she had questions or wanted to share her excitement.
My dad's favorite singer was
Neal Diamond. All of the older kids remember the Friday nights where we would put on Neil Diamond records and he would pick us up in his arms and dance with us. Jonathan remembers the extra flair dad would add to this, dropping and catching us on certain beats to the songs.
He had a quirky sense of humor. Daniel remembers when we would play charades, a game where we acted out movies to try to get others to guess. As soon as Daniel stood up for his turn, before saying anything, my dad would blurt out, "Dumb and Dumber"! Or when Daniel touched my Dad's stomach and said "this feels like jelly", Dad would rub Daniel's head saying "this feels like
jelly".
He was extremely competitive. As Stephen said, you never heard Dad yell, except at a sporting event. He could be seen in the stands yelling at the ref to, quote "get some glasses". Once, when Stephen was sidelined for a few of his soccer games for an injury, and he and dad were sitting in the bleachers, dad literally scared him by jumping out of his seat yelling "what kind of call is that, ref!". Stephen just remembers staring at him, and later commented, "I did not even know Dad was capable of making that loud of a sound." Stephen also remembers playing chess with him once, and after Stephen took his queen, he smacked the pieces off the board and walked-away.
Another theme that kept coming up was how patient Dad was. He never got upset, and if he did, you knew you did something really bad. Once, while dad was working on a talk for church, Aaron,
as a teenager, went into the dining room to check out the computer, accidentally deleting the talk. Dad got upset with him. Later, after realizing auto save had recovered most of it, Dad came and apologized. Aaron remembers: "He was so quick to apologize and tell me that he loved me, even though I was certainly at fault. This has always stuck with me as a great lesson in humility, and I've since always strived to not hesitate to apologize to others."
Dad and my mom were also an example of service, to others and to the church. They would go home-teaching and be gone for hours. My dad wasn't just a dad for his ten children, he was a dad
to many others. Daniel talks about the wilderness youth conference Dad helped set up when he was in the stake presidency in Huntington, and how that was an important milestone for him in building his own testimony, and how he can't talk about it even today without getting teary-eyed.
Dad was also famously quiet, a man of few words, but when he talked you listened. Stephen once met one of Dad's work colleagues, who said "yeah I worked with you father for years. He was soft spoken and didn't talk much, but when he did you had to listen because he was always right." He had a lot of wisdom. One piece of advice that has always stuck with me was when he told me "You know, you can't change other people. People beat their heads against the wall trying to change others, but the only person you can change is yourself."
Another theme mentioned is how much Dad loved his Savior, Jesus Christ. He always said that the most important place to bear your testimony is at home. It was hard for him to make it through family home evening without weeping. He spoke so sincerely of how the Lord had walked with him through his darkest times, and how grateful he was of Christ's redeeming sacrifice for us. One of his favorite scriptures to quote was I Nephi 11:17, "I know the Lord loveth his children, nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things." Whenever I was going through a difficult trial and he did not have the answers, he was not afraid to say he didn't know, or he didn't understand something. But that he knew the Lord loves his children. As I think about my dad's life, and how his illness took so much from him, there are a lot of things I don't understand. His illness robbed him of his dreams of what he would do after retiring: He would work in his garden, play tennis and serve a mission.
After his kidneys failed, he was absent doing dialysis through much of the teenage years of Timmy, James and Joanna and Jacob. Timmy in particular took on many of the caregiving roles for his younger siblings during that time. James once had to rush Dad to the ER, and then had to carry
him inside after he passed out in the parking lot. Good thing James is so built, right? And while it is never a convenient time to lose a father, losing a father at the age of 23, for Joanna and Jacob, is particularly difficult. I can't imagine going through my 20s and 30s without my dad. And
while my mom always told us that she was sure she would outlive my dad, I don't think she ever thought he would die while in his 60s, or that dementia would take such a toll on him and on her in the end. My dad was always so grateful of my mom as she did dialsysis with him almost every day, amazed that she never complained. She was a true companion and help meet for him, to the end.
And as I think about my mom, and her life going forward without dad, I think about an article I read a few years ago, in which a sociologist had summarized the greatest factor in predicting happiness following a death or other major life events. For women, the greatest predictor of how well they will do after a great loss like this is the quality and depth of her female friendships. Here, I can't help but think of women like Suzanne Powell, who has been a friend my morn and dad for over 40 years. Or of all the other women in her ward family, or her neighbor Cathy, who have loved and supported my mom and my dad so much over the years. One thing I miss about West Virginia is the tight knit family that your ward becomes and how many familiar faces I see after coming back years later.
A few years ago, when James got sealed in the temple to his wife, Samantha, all of the children in my family were in the temple together, in the sealing room. I leaned over to dad and asked him how he was feeling; I knew his neuropathy often bothered him. He turned to me and said he felt wonderful, "I'm with all ten of my children in the temple. There is no where else I would rather be."
Megan, who married into the Blood family, said that Dad was simply, quote, "the most Christlike person I've ever known. I know my Savior better now because I knew Dad." Writing a eulogy for someone like my dad is a daunting task. What was it that was so special about him? Everyone that knew him could sense it, but it is hard to put into words. Here I think the scriptures can do a better job than me at describing him: ""Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." Megan said she thinks of
dad every time she hears this scripture.
This may be a surprise to some, but even before the dementia set in, my dad was always struggling with the notion that he had done enough to return back to his father in Heaven, or that he wasn't a good enough dad. Us kids would usually be dismissive of his worries, "Pish pash, we would say, "you are the best dad in the world. And if there is anyone who has kept their covenants and followed the savior, its you, dad". I wasn't worried about it either, but I had enough conversations with him to know it sincerely troubled him. So I can't help but think of this primary song, which was one of his
favorites, as it so perfectly captures my dad, his life, and his move to the other side:
I wonder, when he comes again, Will I be ready there
To look upon his loving face And join with him in prayer?
Each day I'll try to do his will And let my light so shine
That others seeing me may seek For greater light divine.
Then, when that blessed day is here, He'll love me and he'll say,
"You've served me well, my little child;
Come unto my arms to stay."
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