For much of his adult life, he lived on the family farm - 60-odd acres of land with a two-story farmhouse that was built at least a century ago. I think the living room was a claim shack - not sure when it was built - and the rest of the house sprung up around it at some point.
There were many summer days when he practically lived in the seat of his beloved red tractor, harvesting rye, mowing alfalfa, plowing the fields in anticipation of planting. I remember one year, the entire field to the south of the house was filled with neat lines of huge sunflowers that towered over me, huge yellow-feathered heads following the track of the sun. One day, he stopped the tractor in the middle of the field and came walking back toward the house. I ran out to meet him, and he was holding two baby bunnies in his hands. He had accidentally plowed up a rabbit burrow and was able to rescue two of them. I can't remember what happened to those bunnies. I think we tried to raise them but I don't recall if they lived or not.
He had a bloodhound named Princess Anne that he adored. She lived in a fenced-in kennel but Dad would bring her out sometimes and let her run. We had a game where the kids - me and the cousins - would hide in the surrounding woods, and he'd set her to finding us. I was young so I didn't go too far. I hid once in the huge steel wheel of some type of old farm machine, fairly close to the house, and she found me first, knocking me down and slobbering on me. I still vividly remember when we had to bring her to the vet or something. Dad was driving his pick-up truck, and Mom and I were following behind in the car. It was pretty funny to see him sitting in the driver's seat with Princess' knobby bloodhound head rising up from the seat next to him.
He enjoyed grilling. Even in the dead of winter, he'd be out on the open porch in his winter coat, tending to hamburgers and hot dogs. Mom and I liked our hot dogs burnt and crunchy. He'd bring in the plate, and we'd send him back out into the cold because they weren't burnt enough.
At Christmas, his company would give employees two pounds of Abdallah chocolates, and we would nearly pounce on him when he came through the door holding that box. Once, they gave employees one pound of chocolates and one pound of mixed nuts. There was almost a riot in our house that year.
He was cremated, and Mom buried him on the property. When it became apparent that she couldn't financially afford to live there by herself and had to move in with us, she dug up his ashes and brought them with her. She nearly lost the property to foreclosure; someone she knew stepped in to buy it so at least it didn't go to the bank.
My husband Eli and I went to the property this afternoon. We will be moving to Ireland in three weeks - I had planned to bring Dad's ashes with me, but it never felt "right." I told Eli this morning that I wanted to commit a bit of light trespassing and scatter Dad's ashes in the place he called home for so many years. That felt more fitting than taking him across the pond with us.
We pulled into the driveway and walked into the field where Dad used to cut the clover and alfalfa that grew there. I said, "Welcome home, Dad" and took off the urn top, preparing to return him to the land. Unfortunately, his ashes had absorbed some moisture over the years and were hard-packed and refusing to budge. Through my tears, I said, "C'mon, Dad, work with me here." I took a stick and eventually was able to loosen the ashes enough to pour them beneath a tree.**
I stood for a moment and looked at the place I myself called home for many years. The house was no longer there, torn down because I'm sure it was falling down. I don't know what would've been worse - seeing it in terrible disrepair or seeing that it was gone as if it never existed. The ancient oak tree in the front yard was still standing, looking hale and healthy, and I was heartened to see it. Eli and I exchanged our vows beneath the branches of that wise soul, surrounded by his parents, my mom, my friend Lissa, and her husband Dan.
I felt a pang - his father and my best friend are gone now, the house where I grew up is gone, no more fields of sunflowers, no more burnt hot dogs in the middle of a Minnesota winter, no more running around in the woods, inventing games and being cornered by a rheumy-eyed scent-hound.
Memories are all I have to sustain me, all I have to give me that sense of home and belonging, because the physical pieces of the past, the things that viscerally linked me to home, are gone.
**I saved a small bit of the ashes. When Dad would be sitting in his recliner, our dear black cat Duncan (who left us in 2012) would look up hopefully at him and Dad would say, "Don't come up here, Old Cat" or some variation in which he expressed a desire for Duncan to stay down. A little time later, you'd look over and Duncan would be in Dad's lap, both of them quietly asleep. I mixed Dad's ashes with Duncan's and told Eli that now they can nap together like old times.
No comments:
Post a Comment