The Christian

Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7

I got my law degree the following year and Sarah and I struggled to make ends meet, with her going to school for pediatric nursing and the baby.  My father helped out, offering to pay our rent, for our groceries, for whatever we needed, and we took him up on it, insisting that we pay him back plus interest when the time came, but he wouldn’t have it.  “I told you, whatever you needed.  That’s what fathers are for.”  

I’d say in the end, if I totaled it all up, I’d probably owe my father somewhere in the neighborhood of forty-thousand dollars for all he did for me over the years — braces, broken bones, two cars, the apartment, etc.  And if he hadn’t refused to pay for college, I would have owed him for that, too.  They’re not kidding when they say every child you have will cost you a quarter million dollars.  It’s about that, when it’s all said and done.  Think about it.  Think about what that means.

We settled up in a nice two-bedroom in Volohah about ten miles from the farm, and my son had reoccurring ear infections, especially in the winter, and my father helped out with the bills since neither of us had health insurance.

The following fall, I got a job in probate and was able to afford a house, and we moved in, with Sarah beginning her residency shortly thereafter.  My father sat for the baby several times, as did my mother, and sometimes Todd would come by, too.  Uncle Todd.  The house was on the east side of Volohah, out of the valley, and it was a long drive to the farm and an even longer drive to church on Sundays, and we didn’t often make it due to my wife’s rotation at the hospital.

During this time, I could see that my mother was going steadily downhill.  She had become thin to the point of frailty, and she coughed often.  He voice had become straw-like.  I asked whether she had gone to see a doctor, as we were a family prone to ignoring illnesses until we were bedridden, and my mother had shaken her head and said, “It’s nothing, really.  Just the weather.”

I knew it wasn’t, but I didn’t say anything, and I should have.  I should have been there for her more.  It must have been lonely for her, all those times going to church, sitting alone without any of her children around her, without her husband there.  Sure, she had friends, but it wasn’t the same.  Living in that house all alone, with my father out in the fields fifteen hours a day or more, coming in for food she had to make him and coming in in the night exhausted and ready for bed.  And if they talked about anything, what could it have been?  When they used to talk about church?  When they used to talk about their children?  And now all of that was gone.

My mother lasted another year, and in that time she had visited on her own to take care of the baby, and we had talked and gone over things, and that last year had been good.  I had made it a point to attend church regularly, me and the baby if Sarah couldn’t make it, and I had sat with my mother and prayed with her and sang with her, and I could tell it had meant the world to her.

She had died from some form of lung cancer.  Sarah knew what kind, but it went over my head.  The last month, she never got out of bed and she had an IV and an oxygen mask, and she looked very much as my father had after his accident all those years ago.

It looked very different going into my parents’ room then.  The whole place seemed smaller — the whole house.  The hallways we used to run through, the stairs we used to go up and down incessantly — it all seemed miniaturized.  Even the fields outside, the ones my father farmed, the ones I had helped him farm on occasion.  How did all that life fit in there?  How had it seemed so bright, when now it’s like the light from the sun didn’t reach all the corners?

My father wept for some time, and I had never seen him so distraught.  He insisted on a non-religious funeral, and I hesitated to bring it to his attention because I did not want to stress him any further, but I felt an obligation to my mother to do so.  She had altered her will and made me the executor, and in her will she had specified a religious funeral service to be carried out at the church.

“Can’t we get around it?” my father had asked.  “Can’t we just have it elsewhere?  With the same people?”

“I’m sorry,” I told him, and made phone calls at the house to arrange it.

Michael flew in from out of state with his new girlfriend, and Todd stayed at the house with dad.  My mother had been sixty-three, my father was sixty-five.  They had been married since she was nineteen.  That’s a long time to be with someone and suddenly be without.

I guess Michael assumed Dad was going to the funeral, but Todd asked him right up front.  “Are you gonna go to Mom’s service?”

He shook his head then.  “I don’t know.  Who’s giving the eulogy?”

“Reverend Knapp.”

He reached out then and took Todd’s hand.  “Aren’t you going to say something?”

“Yeah, I’m going to say something?”

“Are you going to say something, Michael?” he said, and reached out and pinched Michael’s cheek, smiling at him.

“I don’t know, Dad.”

My dad laughed then, or tried to.  “My boys,” he said.

He went out to the barn then, I think to be alone.  I followed him out a short time later, and he was leaning against his work bench crying.  I could hear all the cows and sheep behind him, and I could hear the chickens.

“What are you gonna do, Dad?  You should go.”

“I know it.”

“You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.  No one’s going to think anything of it.”

“No, I know they won’t.”  He reached back and patted me on the shoulder, his hand just as strong as it ever was.  His massive shoulders.

“Don’t you think you owe it to Mom to be there for her?”

He turned to me then, and I thought perhaps he would admonish me for challenging him in that way, and perhaps he had thought of it himself, but his face melted then into a form of kindness as our eyes met, and I realized that I was no longer intimidated by my father.  That I no longer thought of him as the strongest man in the world.  He had been diminished by the years and by my maturation.

He ended up going to the service.  He arrived early without informing anyone, and the crowd parted as he entered the lobby as if he were holy.  Many were astonished, and it was odd watching the faces, seeing them smile at an old friend, then shrink upon realizing he was there to bury his wife.

He sat in the back pew nearest the door and didn’t allow any of us to sit with him.  When I went up to speak about my mother, I could see him in the rear with his head down, his bald pate shining, his hands covering his face, and I could not tell if he was crying or if he was solemn, but he did not raise his head when he heard my voice, if he heard it at all.

Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7