Click on the "comments" link below to share some of your favorite stories about Chase. Your comments will be posted to the sidebar located on the right side of this page
Sunday, January 6, 2008
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Click on the "comments" link below to share some of your favorite stories about Chase. Your comments will be posted to the sidebar located on the right side of this page
8 comments:
Let me be the first to Share a story about chase. When Chase was about 2 or 3 he came and spent the night at our house. Before bed we put him in the bath. I told him he could get out of the bath anytime he would like, but after about an hour he was still not wanting to get out and go to bed. I devised a plan to convince him it was time to get out. I looked at him horrified and said "Oh no! Look at your hands! you are turning into a raisin!" Chase's eyes grew as big as golf balls and he shoved his hands in front of his face and carefully examined them. Then he began to scan the water around him as if it might be full of sharks. He looked back at me and asked with alarm "A raisin? I might go down the drain!" I figure it is a good idea to teach children fear of hygiene at an early age.
I always loved being around Chase. He always made me laugh and feel right at home. We took a cousins trip to the Caribbean in 2005 and it was the best. One day we took scuba diving lessons. I couldn't make it past the lesson because I got closter phobia. I suggested Chase take my place since he had already gone scuba diving that day. After swimming in the ocean with hundreds of fish and sea animals Chase said with excitement, "that was one of the coolest things I have ever done in my life!" I also remember Chase trying to imitate the native accents in the Caribbean islands. The whole trip he kept saying things like, "ja man." I loved Chase's enthusiasm for life. I will miss Chase more than words can say.
When Chase was about 3 years old I took him for a Saturday of fun. We got in the car and I asked him what he wanted to do. He sat real quiet in the back seat and didn’t answer. Finally I said, “Chase, do you want to go to McDonald’s and to a toy store?” He sat for a minute more and then said, “Aunt Lori, can we go to Chuck E. Cheese? I never got to go there”. I was in shock that this cute little guy had never had the experience of going to Chuck E. Cheese. So off we went to Chuck E. Cheese. By now Chase was my best friend and held my hand and laughed and talked and talked and talked. I didn’t know that he could talk that much. We had the grandest time at Chuck E. Cheese, we did it all, from pizza to slides to little rides on toy horses and bikes. We even met Chuck E. Cheese himself. Then we ended by playing video games which he picked up on amazingly fast. He was really into it! After about 5 hours of Chuck E. Cheese, I had to beg Chase to leave the place. He looked at me with those sad eyes and said, “o.k.”. Well, that broke my heart, so I promised to hit a toy store on the way home. Now we were friends again. We stopped at a toy store on the way home and what a little gentleman Chase was. He politely walked through the store and didn’t touch a thing. I was expecting quite the opposite. He held my hand the entire time in the store and chose a little toy, not something extravagant and said, “Thank you Aunt Lori!” What a doll! I drove him home and when we walked in his house I began to inform his parents that their poor child had never been to Chuck E. Cheese. Chase took off and hid behind the big chair. Gwenette burst into laughter and said, “What? Do you know how many times he has been there? He sure pulled one over on you!” Chase peeked out from behind the chair and gave me the big “Chase smile”. He sure had pulled one over on old softy Aunt Lori. But what the heck, we had one fun day!
Another story about Chase is when he came down to Utah with Gwenette to have tests done in the hospital when he was first diagnosed with diabetes. He came to Grandma’s house and we went to visit him before he returned to Montana. He sat quietly in the rocking chair shooting this ice cream cone gun that they had given him in the hospital. Gwenette told us all about what Chase had been through the last few days. There sat Chase quietly shooting his ice cream cone gun. Then Gwenette told us how crazy Chase was going being cooped up in the hospital and so they had brought him this little toy to maybe give him something to do. Chase listened to her talk and just smiled and kept on shooting that ice cream cone gun. After a few minutes of shooting the gun and quietly watching everybody ever so closely, he motioned for my girls to come over to him. They ran to him and then he said, “Do you girls want my ice cream cone?” Of course they all shook their heads “yes” and he gave them the toy. Inside I knew that the crazy ice cream cone was really his only sanity and he still had a long drive home with nothing to do. But still he gave up his ice cream cone gun to his little cousins. Those girls fought for weeks over who got to play with Chase’s ice cream. They admired him, and it was an honor to be the owner of not just an ice cream cone gun, but Chase’s ice cream cone gun. It left an impact on both them and me. What a big heart inside that boy! Maturity beyond his years! What an angel!!! I love you Chase!!
Love, your old softy Aunt Lori
I remember Chase as one of the most naturally friendly children that I have ever known. He wasn’t one of those “needy” children who likes others mostly because they give things, he just liked people and had no problem showing that. When I came to visit Doug and Gwenette on one of several occasions Chase, then about 4 years old, said, “Do you want to come and play in my room?” He led me down to his room where he gave me an introduction to all of his toys and his belongings. They all had “instructions” that he shared with me if I decided to use that toy.
For years, every time I came to visit, Chase was consistent in his invitation, “Do you want to come and play in my room?” It was his way of inviting me into his life, because as a child, what more can you share than everything in your room? One time I asked him, “Do you invite everyone to come play in your room?”
“Yes,” he replied, “unless they are in a bad mood.”
“Well, that is great,” I encouraged, “but when you are about 14 or 15 your mom and dad are not going to let you invite the girls into your room.”
“Why not?” he wanted to know.
“Oh,” I answered, “you’ll just have to wait and see. It will make more sense then.”
“Maybe,” he said, “but it doesn’t sound very friendly.”
One year I rode with Doug and Gwenette’s family from Salt Lake to the family reunion at Bear Lake. Doug had a camper on the back of his truck so Chase invited me to ride with him in the back of the camper. Chase was about 6 or 7 that year. It was always easy to talk to Chase. He was smart, friendly and naturally an open book to me. I think he could sense when people were genuinely interested in him. That didn’t make him any less friendly to everyone, but he shared more when he knew he could trust you.
On the way to the reunion we climbed up onto the top bed of the camper, looking out of the window facing forward, over the cab of the truck. For a long time I asked questions about school and his friends and things that he liked to do. Then he asked me questions about my life. I thought it was interesting that he didn’t ask me the same questions that I asked him. I would have expected that, after all, at that young age, how would you know how to interview an adult except that you copied the same kind of questions that you heard them ask? Instead, his questions were about why I chose to live where I did and why I chose what I did for work. He was sincerely interested.
Then he introduced me to a game that we played for the rest of the trip. He explained it something like this, “As ride up here on the top, we can’t talk to my dad to find out where he’s taking us. We don’t know where or when he is going to turn. So instead we try to figure out ahead of time where we might be going.” There was no prize, no real honor in winning, just the fun of figuring out what Doug might be thinking and where he might take us. I knew where we were going already but I didn’t want to spoil the game. As we looked down the road, we could see a freeway exit up ahead so we had to figure out if it was and exit that Doug would take. Chase would study the terrain on both sides of the road to see if there might be some clue. I can’t remember if either of us were able to predict the path of our trip, but hearing his thought process was fun and enlightening into his mental processes. I tried to be creative with my reasons that a certain road would be the next turn. Chase had really well-developed reasons. One of his choices was a road that looked like it could lead off into the mountains. “That might be the road,” he said, “because it looks more fun.”
“What makes you say that the mountains would be more fun?” I asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said, “but more animals would live there, because there are more places to hide and that’s where the water comes from. I just think it would be more fun to go where there are more animals. I think that’s where my dad would take me.”
That was typical of most of my experiences with Chase; friendly, open, fun and very mentally interesting. I will always miss that.
I found it hard to record a Chase memory that didn’t include his whole family as that is how I spent most of my time with him. I know the family is seeking for stories that will be new and enlightening. I don’t know that this is new, but just some endearing memories:
When Chase was pretty little I remember that he was an amazingly good baby. He would sit in his car seat for a very long time without being upset or annoyed. I used to wonder what was wrong with my children, as their attention span in a car seat was -10 seconds.
One time I babysat Chase and Taelor. Taelor was a tiny baby and Chase loved her so much that he would mall her. He laid down on the floor and put her on his stomach and then would bounce his torso up and down like a bucking horse. It made me more that nervous but she laughed and laughed and he assured me that he did that all the time and it didn’t make his parents nervous (just his overly protective aunt). He always loved his little sister even when he tried to pretend that she was a bother.
Another time he and Riley went tubing with Doug. Doug pulled them all over the place on his 4 wheeler. They wore out Doug and the 4 wheeler and just didn’t want to stop. Doug finally had to make up an excuse to get them to come home.
Then of course there was the time at Lake Powell that he hooked himself in the nose with his fishing hook. Everyone was calm and Doug cut the hook out (ok everyone except the aunt. She swore a lot and then left so she wouldn’t be the problem).
Chase has always held a special place in my heart as he was just one of my kids for the few years that he lived in Utah. He always had a kind, fun loving heart, and a great sense of humor. He tolerated eveyone well. Especially his Aunt Tam. I miss his more that words can say.
I never had the chance to meet Chase, but just being able to get to know Taelor, Gwenette, and Doug I know know he was an awesome person. Merry Christmas to you guys and know he is with you guys on spirit always.
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