It was a hot day in August. The sun was beating down on man and beast. Bret and Adam were back in college. This year they had a one room apartment in the upstairs of a sweet 92 year young lady's home on Maple Street. We had all gone down earlier to get the boys moved and settled in. Ada had went up and down those stairs like she was a teenager. She really had the "get up". It helped this mother so much to see short little Ada standing out on the porch waving as we drove away. We knew that Bret and Adam were in good hands this year. Ada loved them, and they loved her.
Kate was back running cross country. The girls had done very well last fall. They first came home with the trophy at the regional's, and then the trophy was theirs at the state cross country meet too! At these two meets, we couldn't follow them around like we did in the regular meets, but we could still sit at the finish line and holler! We were so proud of our cross country boys and girls!
But this hot August afternoon, I was disking the 80 across from Grandpa and Grandma's place. As I would go, first south around the terraces, make a turn and then head back north toward Grandpa's old farmstead, my mind was miles away...years away.
You see, Grandpa and Grandma's red brick home stood empty. Grass and weeds grew up among their little grape orchard there in the circle drive. The grass was tall and brown and bent over. The old mailbox with Grandma's 5629 written with a black magic marker was setting at the end of the drive, never to hold their mail again.
The milk cow had been sold, and the little tin milk barn stood alone there among the hedge trees. The green screen door would not slam again, as Grandpa went whistling out with the tin milking bucket. His old blue green pickup sat there in front of the green garage, never again to be driven by him.
Grandpa had another heartache in late summer, which took him from us for always. Grandma moved miles away to live with her daughter, so all we had was their memories that floated out to me from every window, and every tree, and every building. Oh how I missed those dear people!
As I would work those acres of black dirt, dust flying up behind me, I would remember. I would remember Grandma's smile as she waved to me out that kitchen window when I drove the tractor out the driveway early in the morning. I remember her climbing the cherry tree behind the chicken coop and making me promise to not tell Grandpa. I remember Grandpa's old worn black lace up shoes setting by the back door, the tops bent over. I remember newspapers laid out on their living room rug, wheat kernels laying out on them drying in the sunshine. I remembered their big dining room table, all spread out, with laughing faces crowded around it.
It would always be Grandma and Grandpa's place to me. It would always hold a special place in my heart. Life brings changes. Life brings heartaches. But life does go on. And that is what we had to do that late August day there under the hot sun.
Bret was a sophomore in college and Kate a sophomore in high school. Tommy and I had graduated to second grade. Tommy was the little special ed student that I was assigned to when I started my job three years ago now. He was a special little boy and I felt he had come a long ways.There was one thing I had a hard time with. That was I blamed myself if he didn't learn something or conduct himself properly in the classroom. My supervisor warned me many times that if I didn't get over that, they would have to take Tommy away from me and give me someone else. I would try, but it was hard.
Life was full of the normal everyday stuff. Bret and Adam coming home on weekends, the washing machine and dryer running at midnight, horse back rides and bike rides down country roads, Saturday morning cross country practice, teenage anxieties, boyfriends and girlfriends, clothes and hairstyle changes.
One Friday evening in September, Kate had a friend come to spend the week end. They stayed up late playing games and talking, and I was concerned that she would be too tired to get up at six the next morning for her cross country practice. But she had told us that there was not going to be one. It had been moved to Sunday afternoon because one of the girls was gone until then. So I settled down beside Mark and drifted off to sleep to the sounds of laughter.
Ring......Ring..... "Is that the phone?' Mark asked hopping up and stumbling out the bedroom. I sat up and rubbed my eyes, looking at the clock. It was six in the morning.
"Hello," Mark's tired voice answered. "She is sleeping. Why?"
Someone was asking for Kate. "She said that you told them there would not be a practice this morning." Silence...then Mark spoke again. "No I better get her up. Will she meet you in the same place?" Another silence then "Ok." Then I heard Mark make his way down stairs and back to Kate's room.
"What in the world was that all about?" I asked when Mark came back into the bedroom.
"Oh it was Kate's coach. He was wondering where she was. All the other kids are at practice but her."
"What! He told them there wasn't any practice! That's not right. You should have told him she couldn't come. She can't help but be tired, and then be expected to run fifteen miles. No way." I was furious
"He said that if she missed this practice she couldn't run varsity and I know this wouldn't set with Kate, so I went down to wake her up," Mark said as we heard Kate run up the steps and out the door. It wasn't long before her car was rushing out the drive way and down the road. That was Kate! As determined as all get out.
She was one tired girl when she got home and I noticed a slight limp, but when I asked if she got hurt she just brushed me off with a, "No, it will be okay. Just didn't get to stretch like I needed to."
But it wasn't okay. Everyday after school, Kate would run with the girls and boys but she was getting slower all the time. She had done something to the muscle just below the knee on her left leg. She was not going to let it stop her though! It was her fault. She was going to do it no matter what.
She would be in the meets but you could tell that she was pushing herself. You could tell she was just not herself. But she would not stop until finally she came hobbling in the kitchen one late September evening in tears.
"Kate sweetheart, what happened?" I asked helping her to the couch and sitting down beside her.
"Oh mom it hurts! I just can't do it anymore! I'm a failure!" The tears started in earnest.
"Sweetheart it's NOT your fault. The coach told you that there wasn't to be practice that Saturday morning. We better take you to a doctor to check it out."
"Coach told me to alternate hot and cold packs for a couple day and see how it is. It hurts mom!"
Well there was no more running for awhile and the leg kept hurting. Kate lived on Advil and cold and hot packs. School wasn't fun but enduring. One afternoon after school I stopped by the coach''s room and asked if there was any doctor that could look at this leg. He suggested a specialist he sends all the sports accidents to. So we got an appointment and Mark took her in.
When they got home later that morning Kate came storming into the kitchen. "Do you know what he told me? He said there wasn't anything wrong!"
"What? You have to be kidding! You can't even put much weight on it! Something has to be wrong. He doesn't know what he is talking about."
Poor Kate, she tried to run on it but it just brought tears. I had heard of a chiropractor that deals with sports injuries so we made the hour trip to see him. He knew the problem at first glance. Kate had ran too much right after she inured it so scar tissue had built up in the wound. He would break it down with electric acupuncture. So for several weeks Kate and I would drive to his office and she would lay there on that table gritting her teeth as Dr Walt rubbed his finger up the back of her leg, and zapped her muscle with an electric current, breaking down that tissue. It was about all I could stand, but Kate's leg did get better with each treatment. The sad news was that was the end of her running days. She was a very discouraged young lady, but she busied herself in other things. She started talking about soccer come summer.
There was tractor driving, alfalfa to swath and bale, pig feeder lids banging, grain to grind, cattle to bring in from the pasture and calves to wean. In second grade there were papers to grade, children's happy shrieks out in the playground under the blue fall skies. Yes...life was normal until the ball dropped again when Bret came home for winter break.
We had just had supper one cold evening when Bret came to the sink where I was washing up the dishes.
"Mom could we talk for a bit?"
"Sure Bret, what is it?"
"Well I just wanted to tell you that it is a very good possibility that I will not come home this summer like I have been doing."
I just stood there for a little while staring at him. "What do you mean not come home for the summer?"
"Well it's like this. We had a career fair at the college. I went and visited with some representative there from John Deere. They offered me a great opportunity that I can't hardly turn down. They asked me to come and work for them after school is out as a coop student. It could be a way i the job that I have always wanted since I can't farm here with you and Dad."
"Where is this John Deere plant?" I asked just sure it was in the state somewhere.
"You're not going to like my answer, but it's two states away."
I just stood there dumbfounded. I stood there just looking at him all grown up telling me that he was not just moving away, but he was moving away! I just stood there and then I finally said in a whisper, "Have you asked Dad yet?"
"Yes," was all he said.
"What did he say?"
"He thinks it would be a good opportunity. Of course he doesn't look forward to having me gone all summer, but he thought it would be a good way to get a job down the road,"
"And Kate?"
"Oh you know Kate! She will miss me but she just laughed it off really. If I'm happy she's happy. Goodness mom it's not as if I'm going to the moon or something. You guys can come see me. I will be within driving distance."
"Where would you stay? I suppose you would get an apartment somewhere."
"Yeah, that is what I would do but first I'm writing to our friend Virginia who is in that area to see if there would be a room with anyone she knows there that I could rent from. If not, then yes, I will have to go up and look around."
"Well, what can I say. I knew this day would come but I guess I will never be ready for it. Change is just so hard."
"I understand Mom but I just feel good about it all."
Why does life just go on as if nothing great is happening? Why did Mark and Kate act like the world would stand forever, when mine was tumbling down into pieces? I know that I was acting like a baby about all this, but Bret wouldn't be here this summer! STOP THE CLOCK! STOP IT, STOP IT, STOP IT! I would holler under my breath into the air. Bret leaving, Kate with boyfriends and worried about one or two zits on her pretty face. Take a breath mother! You will survive!
Over spring break Bret handed me the letter. "Mom do you want to read this?"
I took it and started to read.
Dear Bret,
I was really happy to receive yours a while back. I have asked some of my friends to see if they would have a room for you to rent while you work in our state. There were three families who would be willing to have you stay with them.
With tears running down my cheek, I read the names of those three families who were opening up their home to our son. Who would make him feel at home away from home. Then I read
Love to you and your family,
Virginia
PS Welcome to our beautiful state.
The tears just poured down. I couldn't help it! Bret was going away. Our first was "flying the nest." Life would forever be changed here on the farm. I remembered that morning so many years ago as Mark and I stood beside the mailbox watching the school bus take Kate and Bret off to Kate's first day of kindergarten. I remember wondering to myself, "Would Mark and I be lucky enough to be standing side by side as we sent them into their new world?" Well that day had come. It wouldn't be long and we would be sending Bret down the road to his new job in the John Deere world.
I just quietly folded the letter and placed it back in the envelope. I handed it back to Bret and excused myself. I had to get a grip. I was happy for him. Really I was... but I needed a moment.
Kate was back running cross country. The girls had done very well last fall. They first came home with the trophy at the regional's, and then the trophy was theirs at the state cross country meet too! At these two meets, we couldn't follow them around like we did in the regular meets, but we could still sit at the finish line and holler! We were so proud of our cross country boys and girls!
But this hot August afternoon, I was disking the 80 across from Grandpa and Grandma's place. As I would go, first south around the terraces, make a turn and then head back north toward Grandpa's old farmstead, my mind was miles away...years away.
You see, Grandpa and Grandma's red brick home stood empty. Grass and weeds grew up among their little grape orchard there in the circle drive. The grass was tall and brown and bent over. The old mailbox with Grandma's 5629 written with a black magic marker was setting at the end of the drive, never to hold their mail again.
The milk cow had been sold, and the little tin milk barn stood alone there among the hedge trees. The green screen door would not slam again, as Grandpa went whistling out with the tin milking bucket. His old blue green pickup sat there in front of the green garage, never again to be driven by him.
Grandpa had another heartache in late summer, which took him from us for always. Grandma moved miles away to live with her daughter, so all we had was their memories that floated out to me from every window, and every tree, and every building. Oh how I missed those dear people!
As I would work those acres of black dirt, dust flying up behind me, I would remember. I would remember Grandma's smile as she waved to me out that kitchen window when I drove the tractor out the driveway early in the morning. I remember her climbing the cherry tree behind the chicken coop and making me promise to not tell Grandpa. I remember Grandpa's old worn black lace up shoes setting by the back door, the tops bent over. I remember newspapers laid out on their living room rug, wheat kernels laying out on them drying in the sunshine. I remembered their big dining room table, all spread out, with laughing faces crowded around it.
It would always be Grandma and Grandpa's place to me. It would always hold a special place in my heart. Life brings changes. Life brings heartaches. But life does go on. And that is what we had to do that late August day there under the hot sun.
Bret was a sophomore in college and Kate a sophomore in high school. Tommy and I had graduated to second grade. Tommy was the little special ed student that I was assigned to when I started my job three years ago now. He was a special little boy and I felt he had come a long ways.There was one thing I had a hard time with. That was I blamed myself if he didn't learn something or conduct himself properly in the classroom. My supervisor warned me many times that if I didn't get over that, they would have to take Tommy away from me and give me someone else. I would try, but it was hard.
Life was full of the normal everyday stuff. Bret and Adam coming home on weekends, the washing machine and dryer running at midnight, horse back rides and bike rides down country roads, Saturday morning cross country practice, teenage anxieties, boyfriends and girlfriends, clothes and hairstyle changes.
One Friday evening in September, Kate had a friend come to spend the week end. They stayed up late playing games and talking, and I was concerned that she would be too tired to get up at six the next morning for her cross country practice. But she had told us that there was not going to be one. It had been moved to Sunday afternoon because one of the girls was gone until then. So I settled down beside Mark and drifted off to sleep to the sounds of laughter.
Ring......Ring..... "Is that the phone?' Mark asked hopping up and stumbling out the bedroom. I sat up and rubbed my eyes, looking at the clock. It was six in the morning.
"Hello," Mark's tired voice answered. "She is sleeping. Why?"
Someone was asking for Kate. "She said that you told them there would not be a practice this morning." Silence...then Mark spoke again. "No I better get her up. Will she meet you in the same place?" Another silence then "Ok." Then I heard Mark make his way down stairs and back to Kate's room.
"What in the world was that all about?" I asked when Mark came back into the bedroom.
"Oh it was Kate's coach. He was wondering where she was. All the other kids are at practice but her."
"What! He told them there wasn't any practice! That's not right. You should have told him she couldn't come. She can't help but be tired, and then be expected to run fifteen miles. No way." I was furious
"He said that if she missed this practice she couldn't run varsity and I know this wouldn't set with Kate, so I went down to wake her up," Mark said as we heard Kate run up the steps and out the door. It wasn't long before her car was rushing out the drive way and down the road. That was Kate! As determined as all get out.
She was one tired girl when she got home and I noticed a slight limp, but when I asked if she got hurt she just brushed me off with a, "No, it will be okay. Just didn't get to stretch like I needed to."
But it wasn't okay. Everyday after school, Kate would run with the girls and boys but she was getting slower all the time. She had done something to the muscle just below the knee on her left leg. She was not going to let it stop her though! It was her fault. She was going to do it no matter what.
She would be in the meets but you could tell that she was pushing herself. You could tell she was just not herself. But she would not stop until finally she came hobbling in the kitchen one late September evening in tears.
"Kate sweetheart, what happened?" I asked helping her to the couch and sitting down beside her.
"Oh mom it hurts! I just can't do it anymore! I'm a failure!" The tears started in earnest.
"Sweetheart it's NOT your fault. The coach told you that there wasn't to be practice that Saturday morning. We better take you to a doctor to check it out."
"Coach told me to alternate hot and cold packs for a couple day and see how it is. It hurts mom!"
Well there was no more running for awhile and the leg kept hurting. Kate lived on Advil and cold and hot packs. School wasn't fun but enduring. One afternoon after school I stopped by the coach''s room and asked if there was any doctor that could look at this leg. He suggested a specialist he sends all the sports accidents to. So we got an appointment and Mark took her in.
When they got home later that morning Kate came storming into the kitchen. "Do you know what he told me? He said there wasn't anything wrong!"
"What? You have to be kidding! You can't even put much weight on it! Something has to be wrong. He doesn't know what he is talking about."
Poor Kate, she tried to run on it but it just brought tears. I had heard of a chiropractor that deals with sports injuries so we made the hour trip to see him. He knew the problem at first glance. Kate had ran too much right after she inured it so scar tissue had built up in the wound. He would break it down with electric acupuncture. So for several weeks Kate and I would drive to his office and she would lay there on that table gritting her teeth as Dr Walt rubbed his finger up the back of her leg, and zapped her muscle with an electric current, breaking down that tissue. It was about all I could stand, but Kate's leg did get better with each treatment. The sad news was that was the end of her running days. She was a very discouraged young lady, but she busied herself in other things. She started talking about soccer come summer.
There was tractor driving, alfalfa to swath and bale, pig feeder lids banging, grain to grind, cattle to bring in from the pasture and calves to wean. In second grade there were papers to grade, children's happy shrieks out in the playground under the blue fall skies. Yes...life was normal until the ball dropped again when Bret came home for winter break.
We had just had supper one cold evening when Bret came to the sink where I was washing up the dishes.
"Mom could we talk for a bit?"
"Sure Bret, what is it?"
"Well I just wanted to tell you that it is a very good possibility that I will not come home this summer like I have been doing."
I just stood there for a little while staring at him. "What do you mean not come home for the summer?"
"Well it's like this. We had a career fair at the college. I went and visited with some representative there from John Deere. They offered me a great opportunity that I can't hardly turn down. They asked me to come and work for them after school is out as a coop student. It could be a way i the job that I have always wanted since I can't farm here with you and Dad."
"Where is this John Deere plant?" I asked just sure it was in the state somewhere.
"You're not going to like my answer, but it's two states away."
I just stood there dumbfounded. I stood there just looking at him all grown up telling me that he was not just moving away, but he was moving away! I just stood there and then I finally said in a whisper, "Have you asked Dad yet?"
"Yes," was all he said.
"What did he say?"
"He thinks it would be a good opportunity. Of course he doesn't look forward to having me gone all summer, but he thought it would be a good way to get a job down the road,"
"And Kate?"
"Oh you know Kate! She will miss me but she just laughed it off really. If I'm happy she's happy. Goodness mom it's not as if I'm going to the moon or something. You guys can come see me. I will be within driving distance."
"Where would you stay? I suppose you would get an apartment somewhere."
"Yeah, that is what I would do but first I'm writing to our friend Virginia who is in that area to see if there would be a room with anyone she knows there that I could rent from. If not, then yes, I will have to go up and look around."
"Well, what can I say. I knew this day would come but I guess I will never be ready for it. Change is just so hard."
"I understand Mom but I just feel good about it all."
Why does life just go on as if nothing great is happening? Why did Mark and Kate act like the world would stand forever, when mine was tumbling down into pieces? I know that I was acting like a baby about all this, but Bret wouldn't be here this summer! STOP THE CLOCK! STOP IT, STOP IT, STOP IT! I would holler under my breath into the air. Bret leaving, Kate with boyfriends and worried about one or two zits on her pretty face. Take a breath mother! You will survive!
Over spring break Bret handed me the letter. "Mom do you want to read this?"
I took it and started to read.
Dear Bret,
I was really happy to receive yours a while back. I have asked some of my friends to see if they would have a room for you to rent while you work in our state. There were three families who would be willing to have you stay with them.
With tears running down my cheek, I read the names of those three families who were opening up their home to our son. Who would make him feel at home away from home. Then I read
Love to you and your family,
Virginia
PS Welcome to our beautiful state.
The tears just poured down. I couldn't help it! Bret was going away. Our first was "flying the nest." Life would forever be changed here on the farm. I remembered that morning so many years ago as Mark and I stood beside the mailbox watching the school bus take Kate and Bret off to Kate's first day of kindergarten. I remember wondering to myself, "Would Mark and I be lucky enough to be standing side by side as we sent them into their new world?" Well that day had come. It wouldn't be long and we would be sending Bret down the road to his new job in the John Deere world.
I just quietly folded the letter and placed it back in the envelope. I handed it back to Bret and excused myself. I had to get a grip. I was happy for him. Really I was... but I needed a moment.
Life takes so many twists and turns which are never easy at the time, but we often look back years later to acknowledge that God does all things well. And this brings peace to one's heart. Thanks for another chapter of your life!
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