I want to share with you a little bit about my Dad, Dave Labrum, also known as “David Lyle Labrum Junior Head of a Potty Brain” at least by his big sister Marj, and by me when he’s beating me at cards. I could go on for days telling stories and remembering but I will try to keep it to a few of my favourites that I think will reflect the character of the Dave Labrum I knew and loved.
I was a colicky baby and Dad spent many a night rocking me in the rocking chair that had belonged to his mother. That rocking chair was well worn but he kept it around and just before he died, he had it reupholstered and gave it to me. So now I can rock my baby in it, though she’s not nearly as fussy as I was. I remember Dad laying on the floor wrestling with Aaron and I and holding it together while we tried to tickle him. He could manage a straight face just long enough that we gave up and I believed until I was a teenager I think, that he wasn’t ticklish, when in fact he was. One of my favourite childhood memories of Dad is him picking Aaron and I up from school on our lunch break. We’d look for the green Canadian Freightways truck in front of the school and run to hop in. He’d drive us home and make us Kraft dinner for lunch. When I was a teenager, my friends loved coming to sleep over at my house because it meant that Dad would make waffle breakfast for us. Some of my friends didn’t have a father involved in their lives and they had a great relationship with mine, and called him Dad. I am so grateful to have a Daddy who was so present and involved in my life.
Dad enjoyed celebrating holidays in a fun way. He often dressed up as Santa Clause for the Canadian Freightways Christmas parties and he spent many Christmas Eves staying up till all hours of the night assembling toys to leave under the tree for us. Easter is one of the memories I treasure though. Dad loved to do Easter egg hunts for us. He’d hide the little chocolate eggs so well though, that we’d usually find a couple of melted ones hiding somewhere in the middle of the summer. When I was nineteen and away at college, I brought my roommates home for our Easter break and dad dressed up in bunny ears and hid eggs in the back yard for us big kids to search for.
Dad loved to build things. He was a very talented woodworker. When Ryan and I were first married, we lived in a basement suite with no closet space so I asked Mom and Dad if I could have the wardrobe that had been in my bedroom at their house. Dad kept saying he would bring it down to Abbotsford for us but he never did. Then, for Christmas, Ryan and I received a picture of a beautiful shelf with hooks for coats and a bench for storing shoes, that was in the back of his truck waiting to be brought into our house. Dad was an expert at building playhouses. He built one in Prince George for Aaron and I when we were young. We liked the playhouse, but what we liked even more, was climbing up on the roof and jumping down into the snow piles. He also built a tree fort for us at our grandparents cabin on Oscar Lake. He made it to our specifications, with a lock on the door and a trap door in the floor with a rope ladder that we could pull up and lock the grown-ups out. When I was expecting our third child, we moved into a new house. I was showing Dad around the back yard and telling him about our plans for it. I mentioned that we were going to clear the shrubs out of a little area to make room for a little playhouse. Well, I could see the wheels start turning and he went inside to get a tape measure and he started writing down dimensions. His eyes lit up as he talked about the house he was going to build, on stilts with room for a sandbox underneath and a dividing wall so there would be one side for the girls and one for the boys. When spring came, he brought down the walls which he had been constructing in his garage and true to his word, he assembled a beautiful play house on stilts with a girls side and a boys side. When Colby and Ashley got a bit older, he built one in their backyard too. When I was pregnant with Evan, Dad’s first grandchild, Dad started building a beautiful change table for us. It was a masterpiece that we kept and used as a toy shelf when we were no longer in need of a change table. Now it’s being used as a change table again! When we brought Evan home from the hospital, Dad was there to change the first diaper on the change table that he had made. Dad is nothing if not fair, so when the grandchildren just kept coming, he worked hard and made a change table for Aaron and Sandi too, and then one for Jeff and Terra. You’ll see a picture in the slide show of my daughter Grace in a rocking horse that Dad made for her for her first birthday.
Dad enjoyed dressing up in costume. Some of you will remember Dad dressed as the pink panther for snow golf. Others will remember his cave man costume, I think it was a Halloween costume when he worked at Chambers, or the many crazy skits that happened at the DCT Christmas parties.
Dad enjoyed sports of many kinds. All of my growing up years, in prince George and in Vernon, he was a regular at the curling rink. In Vernon he played golf and baseball. He never did get to the point of loving skiing like the rest of our family though.
He also loved playing cards. One of the first things I ever told Sandi when she and Dad started dating, is “Whatever you do, don’t play for money when you play cards with Dad. He always wins when there’s money involved!” I can recall many card games with Dad when I was younger, and as an adult too. We played nickels, rummoli, seven-up, and of course, crib. He was the resident crib expert, but I have to state for the record that I did win, the last time we played crib, and it was even for money! (Evan had found a penny and offered it to the winner J)
Dad absolutely adored all of his grandkids, he has eleven! From the time Evan was a very small baby, Dad would lay on the floor and Evan would crawl over and pull his pager off his belt. Dad would have it set so that when Evan pushed a button, it would start to vibrate and Evan thought it was the funniest thing. One time, when Evan was less than a year old, and just learning to say a few words, Dad was over at our place and he and I were trying to get Evan to say “Grandpa.” Finally he came out with something that sounded pretty close to “Papa.” Was dad ever excited! “Well, that settles it – I’m Papa!” he said. And he’s been Papa to all of his grandchildren ever since then.
I asked my kids about their favourite memories of Papa and their number one was going for walks with Papa and his dogs, Charlie and Rosie. They also loved to play the money game, which is something Dad did with Aaron and I when we were kids too. He would take the change that was in his pocket and shake it for us to listen. Then we had to guess how much there was and whoever was the closest got to keep the money. Another favourite memory for the kids is the time we went tubing with Aaron and Sandi’s family and Papa on the Enderby river. It was a long seven hours but so much fun with all of us on our tubes, tied together.
All of these little things are part of the big picture of who my Dad was. I know that all of you have stories of other parts of Dad’s life, and I would love to hear those stories from you. I think when all of the parts add up though, we can all agree that Dave Labrum was a good man, a gentle, loving, generous, classy, brave, strong, sentimental, hard-working, wonderful man. And though I wish I had more days to spend with him, I am incredibly grateful to God for the Dad he gave me and for the days I did have with him.
And this is the slide show that my wonderful husband worked so hard on all week to have ready for today.
