​I had to miss Mom and Dad’s 50th wedding anniversary weekend celebration because I was pregnant with Craig and weeks away from delivering, but the other siblings went to Utah to be with the folks. Bobbe, in particular, made it special by compiling a couple of binders full of mementos. Scott later told me one of the binders included a letter I wrote to Santa when I was only four years old.
 
Only four? Really?

​For most of my young years, we didn’t own a washer and dryer, and I always assumed we couldn’t afford one, but it turns out Mom didn’t want them. Thirteen kids and she didn’t want to be able to launder clothes on the premises? Impossible! But Dad verified it when I was grown.
 
Instead of doing loads of laundry throughout each day, Mom preferred to knock out the gargantuan task in a few hours. So, a couple times a week she’d get up “before the crack of dawn”; wake two or three of us younger kids (who didn’t attend seminary yet); borrow change from the older kids; then orchestrate the production line of loading the station wagon with sorted, dirty clothes.

Unforgiveness and grudges among blood relatives is so much more common than I ever imagined.
 
One night, my book group discussed families breaking up over an argument or small dispute. Evidently, certain groups are infamous for their contentious ways, as I learned from friends who hail from various places around the globe. One lady said when West Virginians disagree, they simply stop talking to each other; Italians, in contrast, favor a more vociferous cutting off, perpetuating anger over long-forgotten quarrels; and Germans, even after decades of not talking, refuse to visit relatives so their children and grandchildren may go their whole lives without knowing their grandparents and aunts and uncles.
 
In the Tanner family, this kind of behavior would be considered immature and unacceptable.

​The black sheep of our family was The Debt, or, better known in our house as “The Debt.”
 
From my earliest memories, Dad was in debt. I wasn’t told directly how The Debt came to be such an unwelcome but close member of the family. Instead, as the years rolled on, I picked up bits and pieces about his borrowing money from friends to build “The Business,” another complicated family member. This I did know: The Debt weighed heavily on our very existence. In my young mind, The Debt explained why we didn’t do repairs on the house and why we never stayed in hotels or took nice vacations. The ever-present Debt explained why we all wore hand-me-downs, held jobs from an early age, got haircuts at home, ate off of paper plates, and drank out of orange juice cans. Because of The Debt, we understood we were expected to pay for our own clothes, sports equipment, dance tickets, and student activity cards, and we knew to borrow pocket change from each other rather than from our parents. Living with The Debt meant forgoing most material things and, by the same token, it meant showing gratitude for receiving anything new, even basics like toothbrushes and underwear. 

​Loud and fast: two words that describe my younger self.
 
I was a very active little girl, in constant motion from sunup to sundown. However, when I got a cold, sometimes it would turn into something worse, and my very personality would change. I may have forgotten this pattern, except for a couple of memories.

​[A posthumous tribute I wrote on Dad’s 90th birthday]

As a very little girl, I used to love playing in a closet just off the back stairs. If I closed the door, I felt alone in a house otherwise teeming with people but safe in a world full of potential adventure and hidden treasures including hundreds of worn paperbacks, my mother’s colored array of high-heeled shoes, and stylish hats in hatboxes from another era.

Exploring in the closet one day, I played with the door’s heavy, brass lock and accidentally locked myself in. Suddenly, I didn’t feel safe anymore. Fun and adventure quickly turned to fear and isolation—feelings mostly foreign to me as a child. Even those dearest to me couldn’t help me escape. My mother couldn’t explain how to unlatch the lock, my brothers couldn’t unlock it from the outside, and my sisters couldn’t comfort me with their kind words.

Then my dad happened along.

​Tanner Manor boasted eight bedrooms and six bathrooms but only one shower. With several rows of perforated piping, the master bathroom “surround shower” was way ahead of its time. Sadly, though, we never used it because it leaked. So, in typical Tanner-fashion, we neither complained about it nor fixed it; we simply used our only other option: the bathtubs.  
 
Tanners were first-rate bathers. We knew how to maximize the water and space in a tub. When we were younger, we bathed like pioneers, sharing bath water till it went murky and cold. Later, when we were allowed the luxury of having our own baths, we learned how to bathe quickly when needed and to take long baths (like Mom) whenever possible.