Soybean Summer

Dad passed away a year later, and I inherited the farm. Jake gave up the struggle the next winter, and willed his farm to Karen. We now had enough land to make a comfortable living and we started a family. First came Little Jake, and then his sister, Brandy. Forever was turning out to be great.

The only problem with forever is that it's different for everybody. With her usual determination, Karen refused to give up, but I lost her a year ago July, forty-one years since we first met at that fencerow. For a week, I thought I'd die. For the next month, I tried to die, but I couldn't.

Adults tend to complicate their lives, and sometimes can't see the truth for all that complication. It takes getting down to the simple viewpoint of a child to put things in perspective. My eight-year-old granddaughter, Penny, helped me want to live again.

"Grandpa, why are you so sad all the time?"

"Sweetie, I miss your Grandma. I wish she was still here."

"Sometimes, I'm sad too, 'cause I miss her a lot. When I play in the flower garden, or in the orchard, it feels like she's still there only I can't see her. Do you think she is, Grandpa?"

"Well, Sweetie, I never thought about it that way before now, but in a way, she is. Your Grandma left a lot of herself with us. She planted that orchard. Did you know that?"

"Yeah, you told me that, Grandpa."

Penny was silent for a moment, and then she looked at me. I saw that little smile Karen had passed on to her.

So, every time I eat an apple, or some of Mommy's peach jam, it's because Grandma planted all the trees?"

"Yes, and when you make your hollyhock dolls, or smell the roses on the garden fence, remember that Grandma planted those too."

"Well, I'll try to be happy when I remember her then, instead of sad. I think Grandma'd like that. Don't you, Grandpa?"

Penny ran off to play. She stopped by the garden fence and stuck her nose in one of the rose blossoms, then turned around and showed me Karen's smile again. It was then I realized that Karen wasn't really gone. She lived on in those gardens and the orchard, in her children, and grandchildren..., and in me. All I had to do was remember her smile, her love over the years, and that hot summer day under the big maple tree beside Jake's soybean field.

Well, I got to figure out some excuse for those missing rows of soybeans before I tell Little Jake. He keeps saying it's time I started taking it easy and let him do more of the work, and I don't want to give him any more reasons why I ought to. How on earth can I stop farming? These young people don't know anything about real farming. All they know is lots of land and big equipment and everything being financed. Why, if I'd asked my Dad to let me take over, he'd have...

Maybe tomorrow, I might stay close to the house and let Little Jake finish up the cultivating. There's about twenty acres of beans behind the barn that need hoeing. We broke a chain on the herbicide applicator when we planted and they're going to be a mess. Little Jake doesn't have time to walk through them. He bought another three hundred acres last year. The futures markets looked good so we planted it all in beans this spring, and he has to get them laid by before they bloom. Penny is the same age as I was when Dad first took me to the field. She has her Grandma's eyes and smile, and that same determination not to quit. It's time she learned about hoes and beans and cockleburs and ice water from a steel cooler. I think her Grandma would like that too.

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Thanks again,

Ronde.