Neal Portman Busk

Neal Busk

Richfield, Utah

Neal Portman Busk passed away January 4, 2018, in St. George, Utah after many years of living with pulmonary fibrosis and post-polio syndrome. He remained resolutely independent as long as possible, his bright mind always active. Neal celebrated his 80th birthday December 22, surrounded by family, who told him of the special meaning he added to each of their lives. Grandchildren played musical instruments, reminding Neal of how his love of music had been passed on.

Other legacies Neal left for children and grandchildren were a strong work ethic, dedication to service in church and community, his example of integrity, his love of learning and of travel, and his dedication to family and preserving the history of progenitors.

Neal was born December 22, 1937, to Stiner and Golda Busk in the family home in Elsinore, Utah. His older siblings, Carol and John, are both deceased. He is survived by two younger sisters, Lydia Jane Gudmundsen and Dorothy (Brad) Thompson, his wife Judy, five children, thirteen grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

Neal graduated from South Sevier High and attended the University of Utah before serving an LDS mission in Germany. After, Neal attended Brigham Young University where he met his wife, Judy Ray Shell. They were married in the Manti Temple May 26, 1962, the day after their graduation. From this union six children were born: Kerri (Brad) Nielsen, Michael (deceased), Kirsten (Russell) Hendry, Chris (Becca), Jeremy, and Noelle (Ryan) Ringel.
Neal taught high school chemistry, physics, and math in California, Japan, and Germany before returning to Sevier County to teach. In 1977 he purchased the Radio Shack store in Richfield and created Panorama Electronics. As each of his children became old enough to work at the store, he helped them by example to develop skills and dedication that made the business successful.
In twenty years of retirement Neal was able to continue church and community service, travel the world and devote much time to archiving papers and cataloging Fremont Indian artifacts collected in the early 1900s by his grandfather, Ephraim Portman Pectol. The collection was recently donated to Utah State University East Prehistoric Museum.

In his life of community service, Neal was president at one time of the following organizations: Tri-County Music Guild, Sevier County Historical Society, Sevier County Arts Alliance, Richfield Lions Club, and Richfield Rotary Club, where he dedicated time to the world effort to eradicate polio. Neal served as member or chair of the Fourth of July Parade, co-chair for the Sevier County Arts Inventory Project and co-chair of the Fall Arts Festival. Basically, he was a person who couldn’t say "no" to a volunteer organization. In 2015, Neal along with his wife Judy received the MacNeal Magleby Service Award.

Funeral services will be held Monday, January 15, 2018 at 11:00 a.m. in the Richfield 9th Ward Chapel, 159 W 400. Friends may call for a viewing at the Magleby Mortuary in Richfield on Sunday, from 6 to 8 p.m. and Monday at the ward chapel from 9:30 -10:30 a.m. Burial will be in the Elsinore City Cemetery. Funeral Directors: Magleby Mortuary, Richfield, Salina and Manti. Online guestbook at www.maglebymortuary.com

In lieu of flowers you may make a donation to the Richfield Lions Club, PO Box 741 or the Richfield Rotary Club, PO Box 951, Richfield, Utah 84701.

Young Love and Old Love

by Judy Shell Busk

As I am now a widow after these last years of caring for my husband, I think about the contrast between young love and old love.

Young love is that exhilaration felt when you first meet someone that might be the “one.” Old love is that contentment felt that you don’t have to look for the one who might be the “one” anymore.

Young love is decorating someone’s room on Valentine’s Day with hearts that say “I love you.” Old love is saying “I love you” every day by going to work, or making the meals, or getting up at night with fussy children, or fixing a flat tire in a snow storm, or being there when times are not romantic but just tough.

Young love is trying to figure out what pleases another person.  Old love is knowing what pleases another person and doing it, even if it requires giving up what pleases you.

When I became engaged, I was majoring in English at Brigham Young University.  Inspired by Renaissance love sonnets, I wrote one for my fiancé, Neal, called “Solace.”

When my world all around me falls and cares

Press heavy down, when people say something

That hurts and no one understands or shares

The feeling that I have, to you I come

With broken spirit and with tear brimmed eyes

You take the face in gentle hands and blot

The tears away; you calm the troubled sighs

And then a spirit new you build from naught

I know that like a child I am when all

I want is you to put your arms around

Me close and say that they were wrong and wall

Away all thoughts of bad far from my sound

Your loving heart to me you freely give

And this, thy care, enables me to live

I really thought then that I knew about worlds falling apart and someone being there, but I didn’t, not really.  I had yet to face the realities of a child dying, a struggle with cancer, the loss of a father, a mother-in-law and a father-in-law, and a mother, not to mention the minor crises of every week which surface in any family.

A number of years ago I wrote another poem for my husband about the comfort of having someone close each night when going to bed.  Up to that time we had never bought a king-sized or even queen-sized bed, although we could have afforded it.  I liked the same old double bed we’d had since our early days of marriage.  I liked someone close enough that I could hear his breathing and feel his body warmth, and sense when he’d left. When my mother-in-law became a widow, I realized the sense of loss that comes when a bed is not shared anymore.  I used to send a grandchild over to, in some measure, fill the emptiness by spending the night.

Love is shared in ways beyond sleeping in the same bed.  It seems like old love does not have to be spoken or even expressed with gifts; it is just the quiet dedication of being there, through the good times and the bad, the quiet trust that knows even if someone is not there for a day, or for a night, or even for a week, he will be back.

Old love is something that can be expressed any place any time, even without any words. Many years ago, I wrote a poem for Neal about this.

One time

We were at a meeting

And you took off your glasses

And sort of rubbed

The bridge of your nose

Where you glasses had been

And turned your head a little

And the light fell on your face

And on your hair

I saw your eyes

And I loved you a little more

At that moment

I wanted to get up and touch you

But I couldn’t

Across the room

So I loved you with my eyes

Did you feel it?

The contrast between the two types of love important in a successful marriage is pointedly expressed in Carol Lynn Pearson’s poem “Double Wedding” in which she pictures both the eros and agape kinds of love.  Eros is passionate romantic love, and agape is caring, Christian love.

The poem begins: “Let’s have a double wedding/You and I and eros and agape.”  It then contrasts the two types of love by lines such as “Let us hold hands, In movies/And in the hospital.”  “Let us write poems/And wills to each other.”  “Let us have nights as friendly lovers/And days as loving friends.”

The poem ends:  “And let the four of us/You and I and eros and agape/Stand in line together/At the grocery store/And at a golden anniversary.”

That was my hope, realized in 2012 when we stood in line at our golden wedding anniversary. And since then we have had the gift of five additional years together.