Effort to Show Love Leaves Dad Washed Out

Published June 15, 1989. You’ve heard what some sentimental parent wrote: “The hand prints on the wall grow higher and higher, and then they are gone.” Susan and I have recently learned the hand prints sometimes return.

Tammy, our oldest daughter just returned from a year of college at Brigham Young university-Hawaii. With her she brought stacks and stacks of dirty clothes that needed to be washed. How she managed to do it by herself for nearly 10 months is beyond me. Now she says she doesn’t have time to wash her own clothes because she has a summer job. Big deal! Our laundry room looks like a neighborhood garage sale. And the dirty laundry keeps piling up. (Someone should write a joke about how many towels it takes for a college coed to take a shower!)

Anyway, the laundry room was getting messy, and I finally decided to do something about it. I decided to help out in the laundry room. I would just go in late at night and early in the morning and wash as many loads as I could. Someone else (maybe Susan or, heaven forbid, even Tammy) could follow me up the next day by drying, sorting, folding, and delivering the laundry for the seven children and two parents now living at home.

So I began. I washed load after load and piled it up. Surely Susan would notice and appreciate what I was doing in the laundry room. She would know of my love by the piles of wet, washed laundry stacked around the laundry room. This went on for four or five days. I worked late at night and early in the morning washing clothes. Surely there was no husband doing anything more loving for a wife and family in all of Utah Valley.

A few days later I could tell Susan had something to say. Finally she said, “Brent, could we talk for a minute?” I knew something was coming. “Could I just make one request for you?” she asked politely. “Yes.” I said eagerly awaiting her comments.

“Brent,” she said, “please stay out of the laundry room, and let me take care of it!”

Imagine my shock and dismay. My acts of love were being rebuffed. “Haven’t you noticed all the work I’ve done in the laundry room?” I asked.

Susan apologized for not being sensitive to my intended help. But she then asked, “Brent, have you smelled wet clothes that have sat around for a few hours?” I replied that I had not. Then came the ultimate blow. The coup de grace. “The real skill, Brent, is not in washing the clothes.” She said. “Anyone can do that. The real skill comes in sorting, folding, and delivering.

And did you notice Brian’s new sweater?” she continued. “It has color stains. And Tammy’s college sweatshirts are supposed to be hung up immediately after washing. She is upset because one of her favorite ones was nearly ruined.”

(Imagine the irony of a college student being upset because someone else was doing her wash!)

My ego was wounded to the core. I do not agree that “just anyone” can wash clothes. In fact, most husbands and college students living at home don’t.

Yes, the hand prints on the wall do get higher and higher and eventually disappear. And then they sometimes return. . . bigger and higher.

Tammy, I love ya. Sorry about the ruined sweatshirt. (And once again, what was the day that fall semester starts?)