Eulogy for An Honorable Father
The sun glinted across the pond. His face echoed wonder as light filled cracks and crevices outlining more than eighty years, and decades melted into smooth skin. He analyzed the water with detached appreciation, seeing it as a scholar, conscious of its mysteries.
A farm pond was an ocean to him, full of deep, unexplainable things — a timeless communion between man and natural force. He watched the water’s surface, perhaps hoping to see Old Bluegill gurgle and snap at a struggling insect. He cupped a hand over his furry eyebrows to block sunlight and follow this landscape to the horizon.
Here he commanded all that he saw: the land was his — a piece of earth where he could shoot a pistol, throw a hook into water, or just amble through alfalfa. It wasn’t much, just eighty acres. But it was his land, a reward for the sacrifice of raising two children and nurturing a sick wife for decades and placing their needs first. Here, he became a young man facing the frontier, a benevolent trustee of God’s pasture, and — the reality — an elderly man who had given in to his dreams — or rather, finally not given one of them up. Now he had another slice of prairie, not to be shared or sub-divided or developed for housing or held simply for profit. What he now owned was much more.
I sensed within the momentous quiet of these minutes something spoken without words. The land was solid, of form and shape, but ephemeral and ever changing. Yet my feelings were fragile, fleeting, and forever in quality. I knew this as an inevitable moment, never to be repeated as we beheld shimmering gossamer gliding over wheat and groves, soundless and at the mercy of ambivalent winds.
This moment was one of those transforming instants that hardened my understanding of finality, of mortality, and of that imperceptible shift from father to son — a passing responsibility for destiny. He was sharing the culmination of his aspirations, his benevolence, and his heartaches.
The sun moved closer to the horizon, a deepening red blush, and the air became damp. A snake slid along a black mud shore toward evening drink. Dad gently raised his finger to point at the shifting slide of life, and the sinking sun drew lines back into his face, and he became haggard again.
This was not a good time for him to take on the challenge of land ownership, but the heady green pastures gave him a reason for living and made his purpose right.
As the sinking sun opened the door to night, I admired his land as if the canvas of an artist. This piece of flint hill was his masterwork, and he staged for me a lasting moment.
