Aric Michel Cramer Sr
March 29,1959 - December 9, 2023
I was a 19-year-old Freshman at Ricks (BYU Idaho) in 1981. They had block semesters, so Return Missionaries could start college without waiting for a new semester. One Sunday, I was sitting in church with my roommates when a newly returned missionary stood up in a testimony meeting. His name was Aric Cramer. He was 6’8” tall and handsome and had just returned from two years in Australia. All the girls at church’s mouths fell open. I leaned over to my roommate and said, “I’m going to marry him.” She just smiled.
Fast forward two months. The dorm I lived in had engagement ceremonies. This was a Mormon college in 1981! The girls all stood in a circle and passed around a lit candle. Eventually, the candle would come to the engaged girl, and she would blow it out; everyone would scream and cheer, and she would say who she was marrying. I don’t remember the girl’s name, but she said she would marry Aric Cramer. My roommates looked at me, and I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Not going to happen.”
The semester was coming to a close, and I still had not met Aric other than he baptized me at the temple when we were doing baptisms for the dead, and he couldn’t remember my name to save his life! I remember thinking, you're going to marry me; you need to learn my name!
In 1982, I was appointed news editor of the college paper. Aric decided to run for student body officer/Academic Vice President. He needed a campaign manager, and apparently, he did know who I was because he asked me. I don’t remember what happened to the fiancé, but Aric won his campaign.
Nine months after we met, we got married.
When we graduated, we moved back to NC to finish school. Aric was pre-med but switched to law. In NC, we had two boys, Carter and Alex. We were both religious, and when Aric gave Carter his baby blessing, he sobbed so hard that no one could understand what he was saying. He said he knew life was not going to be easy for Carter. Aric loved those boys!
Aric enjoyed Tai Kwan Do, weight lifting, and mountain climbing. Our life in NC was tough; we worked long hours and had no money. We lived in a crappy mobile home with roaches, and when you flushed the toilet, sewer flowed in the backyard. Carter was diagnosed with autism and learning difficulties. We had him in a special school, and I was doing tons of therapy with him. Alex was smiling and hanging on for the ride. Fortunately, my parents and family lived in NC and helped us through some impossibly tough years.
Aric finished law school, we moved to Utah, where I went to nursing school and Aric Jr was born. AJ was a happy, easy baby. Life went on; Aric worked as an attorney, I worked as a nurse, and we lived in Centerville. When the kids were around 6, 10, and 12, Aric took me to lunch and blew my world apart when he said he had moved out and filed for divorce. It was earth-shattering, and I didn’t know how I’d survive.
A couple of days later, I took all three boys to Sizzler for lunch, and as I was sitting there as a “single mom” eating lunch with my boys, I realized we would survive, and we did. Aric survived, too. We were married for 15 years and divorced for 25. For the last 25 years, all our interactions involved our boys.
Aric stayed in Bountiful while they were young and then moved to St George, but he always kept in touch and supported his boys. If the boys got sick or had problems, he would drive to Centerville. Aric coached baseball and basketball for Alex. He worried constantly about his kid’s future. Planning for Carter’s stability was a huge stressor for Aric.
When the grandkids were born, Aric and his partner Maddie would drive 4.5 hours to Centerville for a one-hour birthday party or a 120-second ice skating competition, take the kids to lunch, and drive back to St George. They flew to Hawaii for 12 hours for Alex’s wedding. There was no distance too far or an activity to short for him to travel to support his children and grandchildren, and Maddie always joined him.
In addition to his kids and Maddie, Aric loved the law. He wanted to abolish capital punishment, and as a criminal defense attorney, he believed that everyone deserved a fair trial, no matter how guilty. I used to get mad at him and his death row cases and say you KNOW this person is guilty and he would say it didn’t matter. "My job is to keep the needle out of their arm.” He did a lot of high-profile criminal cases in Utah and was passionate about criminal justice reform. Aric was Libertarian.
About a year or two ago, AJ felt that his dad did not have long to live. At that point, Aric upped his time with the kids. AJ and the grandkids drove to St George to visit; Carter regularly took the shuttle to St George. In the last eight weeks, Aric took Carter and Alex to a Jets game (AJ doesn’t like football), he took Carter to Vegas last month, and he and Maddie drove to Bountiful on Thanksgiving to eat dinner with the kids and grandkids and then turn around and went home.
On Dec 4th, he left AJ a message for his birthday. On Dec 7th, Carter called him and he told him he was sick, his back was broken, and he needed surgery. On Dec 8th, he was in a coma, and on Dec 9th, he died. (Aric had worked hard to improve his health over the last two years, he lost weight and was controlling his diabetes so his sudden death from infection was shocking.)
Maddie, his three sons, and grandchildren were there to say goodbye and tell him how much they loved him. To say their hearts are broken does not do justice. Aric planned to live to be 101, but instead, he died at 64.
When I was a very young nurse in the ER, I was caring for a young mom whose baby had died from SIDS. I was so heartbroken by how the grandmother was holding on to the daughter, who was holding on to the baby, and they were both sobbing. As I held on to my boys as they hugged their dying father, I felt that kind of pain. My boys loved their dad, and he loved them.
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