Eulogy
Sunny, 89/60, Fair to Fair. The haying we've been doing has been keeping me busy. The old baler is slightly older and more ornery than I am. While I was busy with the hay, one of my nannies had triplets (Just my luck it would be the one with one teat). By the time I found them a day later, two of them hadn't started nursing yet and were in pretty bad shape. We started feeding them with an eye dropper last night and they started to come around.
My Father in Law passed away last night. The funeral should be pretty interesting if we have farm animals there too. Somehow though, I think my Father in Law would get a kick out of that.
The events of the last 24 hours have me thinking about ¼ section of prime farm land in Gladwin, Mi. Last night, it’s owner either lost or won his battle with life depending on how you look at it. The owner who had the vision to take this 160 acres of potato land and turn it in to a dairy farm. He would build a homestead, raise 9 kids, widow twice and divorce once on the land. For 56 years he would call this place home and eventually, he would die here.
Looking over the fields, I’m saddened. Not by his passing, he said himself he was ready to “kick the bucket” a long time ago, but by what would become of all his hard work. All ready, fence posts lay on the ground by harvesters who carelessly laid their round bales of hay against it. Unused Silos are beginning to fall, barn boards are missing and the machinery buildings, foundation is heaving. In a few years, when the land is sold off and developed, and the buildings disappear, I wonder what will be his legacy.
Then I think about the house, where his legacy really is. Not the sticks and nails, but what’s inside. There’s a teacher, a laborer, and a pharmacist. A carpenter, bricklayer, a computer systems executive, a nurse practitioner, crime scene investigator, and an insurance salesman and there all remembering what he meant to them. There’s laughter when they tell about him hitchhiking to the bar in a body cast because the hospital was too boring. There are tears when they talk about him leaving for the hospital with their mom and returning alone, having to tell his young family that their mother won’t be coming home. But most of all there is respect. Respect for his way of life and the way he lived it.
In the end, I guess that’s all of a legacy that a man really needs.
My Father in Law passed away last night. The funeral should be pretty interesting if we have farm animals there too. Somehow though, I think my Father in Law would get a kick out of that.
The events of the last 24 hours have me thinking about ¼ section of prime farm land in Gladwin, Mi. Last night, it’s owner either lost or won his battle with life depending on how you look at it. The owner who had the vision to take this 160 acres of potato land and turn it in to a dairy farm. He would build a homestead, raise 9 kids, widow twice and divorce once on the land. For 56 years he would call this place home and eventually, he would die here.
Looking over the fields, I’m saddened. Not by his passing, he said himself he was ready to “kick the bucket” a long time ago, but by what would become of all his hard work. All ready, fence posts lay on the ground by harvesters who carelessly laid their round bales of hay against it. Unused Silos are beginning to fall, barn boards are missing and the machinery buildings, foundation is heaving. In a few years, when the land is sold off and developed, and the buildings disappear, I wonder what will be his legacy.
Then I think about the house, where his legacy really is. Not the sticks and nails, but what’s inside. There’s a teacher, a laborer, and a pharmacist. A carpenter, bricklayer, a computer systems executive, a nurse practitioner, crime scene investigator, and an insurance salesman and there all remembering what he meant to them. There’s laughter when they tell about him hitchhiking to the bar in a body cast because the hospital was too boring. There are tears when they talk about him leaving for the hospital with their mom and returning alone, having to tell his young family that their mother won’t be coming home. But most of all there is respect. Respect for his way of life and the way he lived it.
In the end, I guess that’s all of a legacy that a man really needs.
posted by Brad Bachelor at 3:56 AM
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