Writings from a farmHER….about family, and farm….as we harvest life's BLESSINGS together….one moment at a time

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  • A SHIRT COLLECTION

    August 2020

    I am not sure when this urgency was born into my soul. Perhaps, When I was about 15, I borrowed this one black western shirt with fringe hanging off the shoulders and arms for a school “cowboy day”. It belonged to my Dad, and one afternoon I finally got up enough nerve and ask if I could wear it the next day. We didn’t borrow clothing from my Dad, in fact by the time my older brother was 15, his clothes were being handed down to Dad instead of the other way around. Stan was built like Dad, with the exception that Dad is what I would term normally built from the waist up, and Stan was built like our Dad’s Dad, and HIS namesake. Grandpa Stan had a barrel chest and broad shoulders. Thus, Stan handed the clothes down to Dad. Two of my other brothers and built exactly like Our Dad, just nice and lean.

    Dad wore this shirt off and on as he played in a country-western band most every Friday and Saturday night since he was 16 years old. I remember wearing his shirt all day, and it smelled like him. A bit of cologne with a touch of his own natural scent and a hint of coffee. It felt like he was hugging me all day. My Dad is a GREAT man but never hugged us as kids. He wasn’t raised in a demonstrative home, he was raised with a lot of love and encouragement and beautiful words from his mom….they just didn’t demonstrate all they felt. Today, I will hug my Dad when I leave, and though sometimes he tenses up, I do it anyway. When I leave him, or talk to him on the phone I tell him I love him, i think sometimes it makes him a tad uncomfortable, but I do it anyway. He is 83 years young and I am so INCREDIBLY GRATEFUL that he is still here, and I dread the day he wont be. Since i was 12, i would imagine losing him and i would cry…..nothing has changed this many years later.

    Dad playing my OVATION guitar

    I should mention here…….that I was in the 1st, grade, standing behind the school building with some girl friends when one of them burst my heart and shocked me into reality. We were doing hopscotch and saying this silly rhythm about who we would marry, I of course said I was going to marry my Dad when I grow up. SHE told me I was stupid, and that I couldn’t marry him, because he was already married to my mom. Grant it, I should have known that, but we did live a rather sheltered country life…… (Photo below, my wedding day dancing with my Dad 1981)

    Fast forward, to June 2001 . My Son and I went to Nevada and spent some time high up on a mountain that belonged to my Older cousin Larry. He, like his father, and my father was built long and lean. While we were out there visiting Larry had a bag of work shirts and t-shirts he couldn’t wear anymore and gave them to my son. It was kind of Larry to give them to us, and I packed them into my suitcase and brought them home, but My son and I both knew these shirts would never fit him. He is built just like my older brother. Large barrel chest and square shoulders. Once we arrived home, I packed them away in a tote, just because they were Larry’s. Some are uniform shirts with his name and company logo on them , there was few t-shirts, and hats…etc. Within 15 months Larry was killed in a head on collision by a young man doing 90mph in a jag. I was so sad. I pulled one of his t-shirts from the tote, and wore it, just to feel close to him . Maybe to help ease the pain my heart felt so heavily.

    In 2007, I drove to my Uncle Freds house. (My Dads little brother) to give his wife some relief and help take care of him, as he lay in a bedroom dying from cancer. Before the end of the day, he begged me to stay and take care of him. I had never done anything like it before. I never went home. I had clothes brought to me, and I stayed till the end. We had alot of beautiful conversation in that dark back room, and my heart ached for the man who said he wasn’t leaving much good behind. I lost weight during those 3 weeks, it was a lot on my mind to do all I did for him. I was with him when he passed at 2 a.m. I then called his wife downstairs to tell her. I called the coroner, and when they arrived they said “they would not accept him as he was”. His body so rapid with fever and bacteria, that he only wore a diaper, because he was so hot. I had to dress my deceased Uncle’s body by myself that morning. I have never gotten over that feeling. I stayed through the final process of it all. My Aunt clung to me like a lifeline. Insisting I sat beside her during the funeral and to the cemetery. At his funeral, the preacher stopped at the end and said so perfectly….”I won’t mention the name, as this person is incredibly giving and doesn’t seek the notoriety for it, but we know and GOD knows that Barb and Fred had an angel in their midst these last 3 weeks and we know who that angel was.” That meant a lot to me. And to add a bit more “frosting” afterward my Dad walked up to me and said “I think the angel the preacher was talking about was you” wasn’t it. I just smiled. Again, before I left the house, to come back to life, I ask my Aunt for one of his old flannels and she told me to take all his civil are t-shirts as we both were history buffs.

    In hindsight, I am most grateful that I took care of my uncle, for otherwise I wouldn’t have known or had the experience that I would NEED just two years later, to take care of Burt.

    My Uncle Fred My Dad

    In 2009, My very Best Friend and Confidant. We had the BEST of friends for 26 years. I knew him my entire life, but shortly after the birth of my first child in 1983, he began stopping by my old single-wide mobile home and having coffee with me. My home was clean, but the trailer was about wore out when we bought it for $500.00 and put it up on a piece of property that belonged to my Dad. We made payments on the septic system for 6 years. We were so poor, but that was such a RICH time in my life.

    Burt was 36 years OLDER than me, and he loved to stop by my humble little place and visit. He never having children of his own, grew attached to mine, and we spent many days walking the woods together, sharing conversations about life, and love, and happiness and the pursuit of it all. What is real, and isn’t. What matters and what doesn’t. I learned so many things from him.

    In 2009, Burt was dyeing in a nursing home. I begged his wife to let me bring him home to die, as each day he ate 9 spoonful’s of food, then seven, then 5… He begged to me every day to bring him home. When I agreed to move in and stay until it was all over, and promised his wife that she would not have to take care of him in any way, she finally agreed. I was his entire hospice team for 2 weeks while he lost his battle to several health issues. Those were hard days, sad days, and days still filled with so much love. I held on to him until the end, I recorded his time of death, and I prepared his body, before I called the coroner. As the van pulled out of the driveway with my dearest friend laying in the back covered with a white sheet, there was a woman standing behind the house in downtown south bend, crying and sobbing so hard, I almost didn’t recognize her. It was me. Later that day, I went into his closet and pulled his favorite tie, his “Mr. Rogers church sweater” I always teased him about, and both of his OLIVER TRACTOR t-shirts. (I was a fan, because of him ) Today, I still wear his sweater on a cold winter day, and his t-shirt is about worn thin.

    When I wear them, I feel close to Burt. It makes my heart feel lighter, healed, maybe not so broken, and it help ease the pain that I still try to push clean down to the bottom of my farm boots, but it stills rises when i least expect it to. That MISSING YOU feeling never goes way. We deal with it, file it away…but its still there.

    2018 I had met a woman of remarkable value. She was born as Edna, but her name never stuck. Clear up until the day she passed, close friends and family called her Babe. She was a tall, stout woman with such a loving demeanor and such a hard working woman. I loved to sit at her table and hear the stories of her life. During the wars 1941- her and her husband raised chickens in a large silver military Quonset and collected and washed 1500 eggs a day. Folks would come to their home with food bonds, and were allowed only 1 dozen eggs per family. Babe would tell her husband to redirect their attention and she would sneak 4 or 5 dozen into the vehicles of people who had a large brood of children and needed more than what the govt said they were allowed to have. She was beautifully kind, and smart, and the more time i spent with her, the more i idolized her. Did I mention she was 88 when i met her, and 94 when she passed. At her funeral, I about had to gag my own mouth. a few family members stood up and talked about her but no one spoke of her accomplishments as a woman, about her name and how it came to be, about how she took care of dozens of others, how she took in borders later in life, more to help them that herself. Every single time she saw me, she kissed me right on the lips, and as strange as it sounds, I adored it, and her. When she passed, because we had talked about my silly fettish, her daughter Jo who is 78 showed up at my house one afternoon and said “Mom wanted you to have her garden shirt and this old family bible”. I was so touched and boy did I cried. Even on her deathbed, Babe thought of me.

    Myself, JoAnne, and Babe

    *******************************************************

    I have shirts and a bathrobe that are my dad’s. When his wife cleans the closets and asks me to pass them onto my son-in-love that is the size of my dad, I tell her I will, but I always steal the most well-worn shirts for myself.

    My older brother, and dear friend…lives 6 hours away, when he went through a divorce, and lived here with me, and his “ex” so generously threw all his clothes in black garbage bags, with most of his other possessions. It all stored in my garage and then one morning he and I repacked everything so he could move south. All that was left on the garage floor he told me to just toss for him. I did not. I kept his well-worn Carhartt bibs, a couple of pair of his Carhartt carpenter pants, a few of his t-shirts, and flannels. Why? Because they were his. Obviously, I can never wear his bibs or jeans. And I bought a 1986 Orange Ford F 150, and a 1960 Farmall 504 from him ….just because they were his first.

    My Brother Stan,

    The reason for this lengthy posting is this……

    IF I ASK YOU FOR ONE OF YOUR SHIRTS, you can rest assured that I adore you, that I love you, and respect you. I want to carry a part of you with me. If it’s a day that you are gone from this world, or just a day when you are farther away from me than my heart can stand, I want to wear your shirt. I want to smell your scent, and allow it to transport me to a moment in time that is locked up tight in my mind.

    You matter that much to someone. You are that important to someone, You made that much of a difference in someone’s life, and you are that hard to just let go of. I am that SOMEONE that will never let you go, never forget you, never stop loving you, and will always want to carry a tangible piece of you with me, always.

    When it comes time for me to walk away from this side of the world, I’d like to think that someone will want a part of me to hold on.

  • ONLY TWO OWNERS SINCE 1936

    His name was Burton Chester. Born July 9, 1926

    He was 37 years older than me. He was living in our farming community the day that I was brought home from the hospital. We four kids grew up knowing Burt as the friendly kind neighbor who stopped by the farm and sold seed corn to my Dad (Amcorn) and drank a lot of coffee. I grew to know him as the old white-haired guy.


    Alas, as is the story, time changes EVERYTHING.
    When I was 18, Burt was 55 at this time. He stopped by our family farmhouse one weekday and ask if my Dad was home. When I told him he would be soon he ran to town. Burt seemed pretty disappointed. “Well.”…I remember him saying as he rubbed his chin back and forth with his large hand..” Your dad told me I could stop by and use his welder one day this week. I need to get this part welded and back on the corn picker.” I smile and said, “I can hook you the welder for you. “

    This act in itself was hilarious. My folks were in the middle of remodeling the kitchen and while they waited for Mom’s double wall ovens to come in Dad had hooked up the old stove in the basement so we still had an oven. Mind you we had to go from the kitchen, through the dining room, through the new living room, and down the stairs to the basement to use it. Allow me to just add here that baking cookies were an Olympic workout. I unhooked the stove and pushed the wire up through the basement window to Burt who was standing outside in the driveway to retrieve it. That is all there was to that story. Burt always told me it was then that he saw me as a grown person and not the daughter of that farm couple down the road.

    Jump to 1983. My husband and I had just had our first baby. A sweet little girl born on Easter Sunday. What a Blessing. I took that as a special gift from God, not just our baby girl, but that she was born early Easter morn. That next week…on the way home from visiting my parents I was driving past Burt’s farm and he was walking on the road. I pulled the old diesel truck over and he opened the door, and I said “Hey Burt, look what the Easter Bunny brought us”. Of course, he made over our little bundle as do most polite people, but there was a spark in His eyes as he looked her over. Again, here come that large hand with long overstuffed looking fingers and he so gently reached up to touch her hand and she grabbed ahold of his finger…and he beamed.
    I told him he needed to come by my house sometime for coffee whenever he was in my neck of the woods. (Which was just the next town over 8 miles). And visit he did. Burt came to my house at least twice a week for coffee for over twenty-six years! We were like soul mates. Best Friends. We enjoyed so many of the same things, and we could talk for hours and never run out of things to say. And oh what a celebration on a rainy day because that meant two pots of coffee or more. He introduced me to photography and the world always seemed brighter when looking through his lens.

    Two more babies were born, and still, Burt was around. He seemed to enjoy our children. There was a time when my Dad had a slipped disc in his back and in the early mornings Burt would come to my old trailer and watch my three babies so I could run down to my dad’s and do his morning chores for him. For a man that had never had babies of his own…this was a wild adventure. We laughed about some of those moments over and over again.
    In l990 Burt’s wife of 44 years passed. She was never happy on the farm, never happy in her marriage and it was no secret that she used alcohol to console her disappointment. There were no children from their marriage. Shortly after her death, Burt asked me if I could help him try to clean up his house a little bit. It had been 44 years of accumulated debris and over 70 cats were living in the house with no litter boxes.

    NOTHING had ever been swept or thrown away. It was a two-year process to find the home he once knew. I enjoyed sitting in Burt’s home drinking coffee with him and listening to his stories of growing up on that farm. His parents owned it before he did. They bought it in 1936. Burt took over after his father died suddenly in 1944. He was in boot camp at the time and was returned home by the military.

    In the Spring of 1994 Burt came to me and said he wanted to sell his 200-acre farm and he did not want any of the bigger farmers to have it. He was from the old school and he loved the older way of doing things. He knew I had no money. We truly were as poor as any church mice you could have ever come across and only GOD KNOWS how we survived. So he told me what he wanted for the place, and offered me a land contract with a dollar down. (Not only is that unheard of…..but it has been and will always be the best gift in my life second only to our babies). Burt was to marry his high school sweetheart and he was moving to Indiana. He was 68 years old. Below: Burt and I in 2004

    Twenty years have come and gone since then. We took this old ram shackled house and turned it into a happy little farmhouse. It’s clean, comfortable and country. When we bought the land and later had it all assessed so we could purchase some equipment they would not even put a value on the house,. It had been neglected for 44 years and over 70 cats were living in this house at one time. When we moved into the house and started to clean the upstairs to live in it, I carried many 5 gal buckets of dried cat manure out of the master bedroom alone. People have NO IDEA how much physical work has gone into this house. We hired nothing done as it was too costly. So I learned to plaster, plumb, remove, repair, replace windows, subfloors, build decks. I put the crops in during the spring and I harvested them in the fall. My husband worked off our farm for a larger farmer. So while his time here was always limited….it was because of him that we were able to keep ours going.

    The farm in 1940 (top left) then 1990 (Top Right) . Bottom …the Farm as she stands today!
    Then Burt was drinking coffee in my house again, but it used to be his house. He loved it. And he would tell me over and over again that some of the changes took his breath away cause that’s how his parents used to do this or that. He kept saying ” My parents are so proud of how you have brought life back to this old place…and I bet they shook probably shook their heads in dismay at me”…..
    Burt ALWAYS believed in preserving the land and while the house he allowed his wife to control, the land he kept on top of. Nutrients and such.

    In 2009, Burt was sick, and after a bit of a gallant fight, and spending time in a nursing home for rehab, he wanted to come home to die. His second wife said she could not do it by herself and did not want to go through all that again as she had with her first husband.
    I promised if we could bring him home to pass that I would stay until it was over, and she would never have to administer anything and I would not leave till it was all over. I never left, not even to run to the store. I stayed beside Burt for over two weeks and I was his whole HOSPICE team.

    I never dreamed in all the years that we had coffee, the bonding that brought us so close together that I would be the one changing his cath bag, rubbing his tired nothing, boney body with lotion while he cried over and over from the pain. Never had I thought that I would be the one administering his morphine every couple of hours.
    The pain of death is an awful one, and the suffering makes no sense to me. I remained always on one side of him and his wife was on the other. He kept calling us his Angels and he would hold both of our hands and hug us both at the same time and kept thanking us both for working together and loving him as we did. His wife was wonderfully precious and I will be forever grateful that she allowed me to be there.
    One day, he kept crying and asking us “why won’t the Lord just take me, I’m ready to go, I want out of this pain and suffering”. Our hearts were so heavy on days like that, and there were a number of them. We tried to explain the Lord was just preparing a place for him at HIS table, on His timetable, not ours. It wasn’t much comfort.
    I was sitting at the end of his bed, my hand rubbing along his shin and listening to some other men talking that were there to see Burt when I felt the life slipping from his body.

    Finally. No more suffering for him. I prepared his body for the Coroner, I put on his clean pajamas, and held his eyes closed till they stayed on their own. I realize that some who read this will not understand that those are the things you have to do when it’s finally over A part of my heart died that day. Burt had become my mother, my sister, my brother, my father, my best friend…..I knew that I would be the same after he was gone. There is a part of me that won’t ever regrow. I won’t be able to regift that part of me to anyone else ever again because I buried it with Burt.
    Holding a hand as a loved one slips from this world, is an entire post all on its own. I wouldn’t have missed being there with Burt for the world. I wouldn’t have missed loving him and sharing his life and when you love and share completely….then you realize that it doesn’t just mean when there is an occasional rainstorm…it means even IN DEATH.

    This photo is not pretty of my beloved Burt or me. These were some pretty dark days, a lot of nights full of pain and broken hearts, a lot of tears and hugs, little to no sleep, some nights laughter filled the room till the early morning light, and other times the silence was deafening. The waiting was excruciating. For him and us, and given the choice………. I would do it all over again. For Him.


    I am a better woman today because He first loved me. He saw something in me and through him, I saw something in myself too, for the first time. I felt worth, I felt like I was ENOUGH, exactly as I was. There were no hoops to just through, no conditions to earn his love.
    What a gift he left me with. What a gift this farm has been for me. I will be PAYING on it until I die no doubt, but a gift just the same for us, for our three babies all grown up, and now for our twelve grandbabies. They all gather here, play here, work here and walk around this farm that is still plowed the old-fashioned way. We grow corn without all the sprays and pesticides that bigger farmers use. We and pick ear corn and offload it into corn cribs instead of taking it to a local mill, and it is a huge family weekend when beginning harvest. Everyone is here, eager to help, eager to ride in the gravity wagons or try their hand at driving a vintage combine.
    For the last couple of days, I have been out in the fields plowing with my OLIVER (not john deere) tractor and it takes me an entire day to get across a 20-acre field that the BIG BOYS cut through in 30 minutes. I am in an open station when most are all in soundproof cabs. It’s the way I like it to be, I can hear things better, I can feel the sun and wind on my face, and get to take in that wonderful combination smell of dirt and diesel which I love, and breath in the fragrant Spring as it comes to life.

    TODAY……I WEAR HIS COAT

    Burt’s old chore coat from 1960. It’s way too big on me, and I have to wear a sweatshirt underneath it. It’s as antiquated as my tractor, but I treasure it. I wear it because this was his parent’s dream, then it was his dream, and it’s been my dream for the last 34 years.

    And:
    I WEAR HIS COAT to feel closer to him somedays, hoping that he can see me in it, and know how much I MISS HIM STILL. How GRATEFUL I am for the chance to live on this land , to work it and follow in his footprints . It’s an honor & and privilege to continue his parents dream that began in 1936, A dream passed to him in 1944, and passed on to us in 1994.

  • I WEAR HIS COAT

    September 2021

    Burt and I at His wedding in 1994

    His name was Burton . He was 37 years older than I.   He was living in our farming community the day that I was brought home from the hospital. We four kids grew up knowing Burt as the friendly kind neighbor who stopped by the farm and sold seed corn to my Dad (Amcorn) and drank a lot of coffee. I grew knowing him as the old white haired guy.

    Alas, as is the story, time changes EVERYTHING.  When I was 18,Burt was 55 at this time.  He stopped by our family  farmhouse one week day  and ask if my Dad was home. When I told him he would be soon he ran to town. Burt seemed pretty disappointed. “Well.”….I remember him saying as he rubber his chin back and forth with his large hand..” Your dad told me I could use his welder and I really need to get this part welded and back on the corn picker.”  I smile and said  “I can hook you up with the welder. “

    This act in itself was hilarious. My folks were in the middle of remodeling the kitchen and while they waited for moms double wall ovens to come in Dad had hooked up the old stove in the basement so we still had an oven. Mind you we had to go from the kitchen, through the dining room, through the new living room and down the stairs to the basement to use it.  Allow me to just add here that baking cookies was an Olympic workout.  I unhooked the stove and pushed the wire up through the basement window to Burt who was standing outside in the driveway to retrieve it.   That is all there was to that story. Burt always told me it was then that he saw me as a grown person and not the daughter of that farm couple down the road.

    Jump to 1983. My husband and I had just had our first baby. A sweet little girl born on Easter Sunday. What a Blessing. I took that as a special gift from God, not just our baby girl but that she was born early Easter morn. That next week…on the way home from visiting my parents I was driving past Burt’s farm and he was walking on the road. I pulled the old diesel truck over and he opened the door, and I said “Hey Burt, look what the Easter Bunny brought us”.  OF course he made over our little bundle as do most polite people, but there was a spark in His eyes as he looked her over.  Again, here come that large hand with long over stuffed looking fingers and he so gently reached up to touch her hand and she grabbed ahold of his finger…and he beamed.

    I told him he needed to come by my house sometime for coffee whenever he was in my neck of the woods. (Which was just the next town over 8 miles).  And He did.  In fact Burt came to my house at least twice a week for coffee for over twenty six years!  We were like soul mates. Best Friends. We enjoyed so many of the same things, and we could talk for hours and never run out of things to say. And oh what a celebration on a rainy day because that meant two pots of coffee or more.  He introduced me to photography and the world always seemed brighter when looking through his lens.

    Two more babies were born, and still Burt was around.  He seemed to enjoy our children.  There was a time when my Dad had a slipped disc in his back and early mornings Burt would come to my old trailer and watch my three babies so I could run down to my dads and do his morning chores for him.  For a man that had never had babies of his own…this was a wild adventure.  We laughed about some of those moments over and over again.

    In l990 Burt’s wife of 44 years passed. She was never happy on the farm in all those years and used alcohol to console her disappointment. There were no children.  Shortly after her death Burt ask me if I could help him try to clean up his house a little bit.  It had been 44 years of accumulated debris and cats and NOTHING had ever been swept or thrown away. It was a two year process. Still, I enjoyed sitting in Burts home drinking coffee with him and listening to his stories of growing up on that farm. His parents owned it before he did.

    In the Spring of 1994 Burt came to me and said he wanted to sell his 200 acre farm and he did not want any of the bigger farmers to have it. He was from the old school and he loved the older way of doing things.  He knew I had no money. We truly were as poor as any church mice you could have ever come across and only GOD KNOWS how we survived.  So he told me what he wanted for the place, and offered me a land contract with a dollar down.  (Not only is that unheard of…..but it has been and will always be the best gift of in my life second only  to our babies).  Burt was to marry his high school sweetheart and he was moving to Indiana. He 68 years old.

    Twenty years have come and gone since then. We took this old ram shackled house and turned it into a happy little farmhouse. Its clean, comfortable and country. When we bought the land and later had it all assessed so we could purchase some equipment they would not even put a value on the house,. It had been neglected for 44 years and over 70 cats were living in this house at one time.  When we moved into the house and started to clean the upstairs in order  to live in it , I many  5 gal buckets of dried cat manure out  of the master bedroom alone.   People have NO IDEA how much physical work has gone into this house.  We hired nothing done as it was too costly. So I learned to plaster, plumb, remove, repair, replace windows, sub floors, build decks.  I put the crops in during the spring and I harvested them in the fall.  My husband worked off our farm for a larger farmer. So while his time here was always limited….it was because of him that we were able to keep ours going.

      

    The farm in 1940 (top left) then 1990 (Top Right) . Bottom …the Farm as she stands today!

    Then Burt was drinking coffee in my house again, but it used to be his house. He loved it. And he would tell me over and over again that some of the changes took his breath away cause that’s how his parents used to do this or that. He kept saying  “I bet my parents are so proud of how you have brought life back to this old place…and I bet they shook their at me”…..

    Burt ALWAYS believed in preserving the land and while the house he allowed his wife to control, the land he kept on top of. Nutrients and such.

    In 2009, Burt was terribly sick, and he wanted to come home to die. His second wife said she could not do it by herself and did not want to go through all that again as she had with her first husband. So, I promised if we could bring him home to pass that I would stay until it was over, and she would never have to administer anything and I would not leave.  And I never did. Not even to run to the store. I stayed two weeks and was Burts HOSPICE team.  I never dreamed in all the years that we had coffee, the bonding that brought us so close together that I would be the one changing his cath bag, rubbing his nothing but bone body with lotion while he cried over and over from pain. That I would be the one administering the morphine every couple hours. The death pain is an awful one, and the suffering makes no sense to me,  I was always on one side of him and his wife was on the other. He kept calling us his Angels and he would hold both of our hands and hug us both at the same time and kept thanking us both for working together and loving him as we did. His wife was wonderfully precious and I will be forever grateful that she allowed me to be there. He kept crying and asking us “why wont the Lord just take me, I’m ready to go, I want out of this pain and suffering”.  Our hearts were so heavy as we tried to explain the Lord was just preparing for him on HIS time table.

    I was sitting at the end of  his bed, my hand on his shin and listening to some other men talking who were there to see Burt  when I felt the life leave his body. Finally. No more suffering for him. I prepared his body for the Coroner, I put on his clean pajamas, and held his eyes closed till they stayed on their own.  And I realize that some who read this will not understand those things you have to do. A part of my heart died that day. Burt had become my mother, my sister, my brother, my father, my best friend…..I will never be the same. There is a part of me that wont regrow, I wont be able to regift it to someone else because I buried it with Burt.

    Holding a hand as it slips from this world, is an entire post all on its own. I wouldn’t have missed being there with Burt for the world. I wouldn’t have missed loving him, and sharing his life and when you love and share completely….then you realize that it doesn’t just mean when there is an occasional rain storm…it means even IN DEATH.

    This photo is not pretty of Dear Burt or myself. These were some pretty dark days, a lot of nights full of pain and broken hearts, a lot of tears and hugs, little  to no sleep, some nights laughter filled the room till early morning light and other times the silence was deafening. The waiting was excruciating….  And given the choice………. I would do it all over again. For Him.

    I am a better woman today because He first loved me. Because He saw something in me and through him I saw something in me too. What a gift he left me with. What a gift this farm has been for me, for our three babies all grown up and now our ten grand babies get to come here and play and walk around a farm that is still plowing the old fashioned way. Still growing corn without all the sprays and picking ear corn and offloading it into corn cribs instead of taking it to a local mill .

    So, for the last couple days I have been out in the fields plowing with my OLIVER (not john deere) tractor and it takes me an entire day to get across a 20 acre field that the BIG BOYS cut through in 30 minutes.  I am in an open station, when most are all in sound proof cabs.  But that’s ok. I hear things better, I feel the sun and wind on my face, I love the smell of dirt and diesel  and breathing in the  fragrant Spring as it comes to life.

    AND  STILL TODAY…..I WEAR HIS COAT. Burt’s chore coat. Its way too big on me, generally have a sweat shirt under it. Its as old and antiquated as my tractor, and older than me.  But I wear it anyway….I wear it because this was his parents dream, then it was his dream, and now its been my dream for the last 21 years….and I am thankful that GOD saw fit to bring into my life a person that truly showed me Unconditional Love and acceptance.

    I WEAR HIS COAT to feel closer to him, in hopes he can see me wearing It…and can feel how much I miss him…and how precious he was to me, how grateful I am daily for the chance to live on this land and work it, and walk in his foot prints.