Good-bye to Brother Roberts

Yesterday Dad and I went to Tony Roberts' funeral. It's hard to believe that he was 72 years old. He seemed much younger. Tony and Linda Roberts moved into our ward about a week after Dad and I moved in back in 1984. She worked with Dad at Landa and then C-tech up until a few years ago. She was his assistant for a long time. Shanna knew Linda as "Sista Wobuts"--she was the nursery leader when Shanna was little. Brother Roberts served as a Bishop twice and a Branch President as well. He had a pilot's license and was also a professional scuba diver. He was best known for being kind. He was just about the nicest guy you could ever hope to know. He worked for a large construction equipment company and when Dad needed to paint the front of our house on 24th Ave. (the one with the VERY STEEP driveway) he brought over a bucket truck and let Dad use that. They often sat in front of us at church and I always worried that we were disrupting their peaceful sabbath as I wrestled with three restless children while Dad was up on the stand. One testimony day, Bro. Roberts got up to bear his testimony and he said, "I don't know what my mother in Heaven is like, but I imagine her to be very much like Sister Gale. She treats her children with so much love and patience." I didn't actually hear him say it because I was in the mother's room dealing with one of my children (with love and patience I hope) and later someone else told me: "Wow! Brother Roberts paid you the highest compliment." and when I looked baffled, she went on to tell me what he had said. His kindness was so Christlike because he could have been critical (seriously, our kids were bouncing around like yahoos in the pew behind him every Sunday!) and that would have made me feel defensive but he chose to look for a positive to compliment and that made me want to live up to it. From what I heard about him at his funeral yesterday, everyone who ever knew him had an experience like that with him.