I was called back to the land of my childhood. I had been gone so long that I scarcely recognized anything. Roads that I had traversed a hundred times, if one, no longer held meaning for me. Those old country roads used to hold love, support, family. I don t know what I expected when I traveled back to say one final goodbye to my Granddad. I can tell you I didn’t expect to find a sky I no longer knew. I held my breath driving down the once familiar stretch of road, looking past the exposed branches to the sky beyond. I felt betrayed. That sky was not mine. I did not belong under it.
I nearly had to pull off the road. In that moment, I wondered why GOD failed to install wipers on my eyes, and why he took Pops away. I wondered why too, that HE allowed me to find my life so far from where I came from. I love my wife, and I love my kids. Pops, he is the reason I am who I am. I left for college and never really came back. We visited once or twice a year, but our lives went on so many miles away.
I never called Pops, not once. It had not occurred to me ’til that day to have even checked on him. That man gave everything he was to me. He gave me love, attention, and time. I rode in the tractor with him. I wiled away time at the pond, fishing with him. We laid on the steps of the old church, looking up at the sky. Pops would openly talk to GOD about grandma and how much he missed her. She died so young. My folks thought they were doing him a favor, I guess, sending me along with him. They didn’t want him to be alone. What they really did was give me the chance to be better than I ever could have been.
I liked Pops because he was my grand dad, but I didn’t know him before that. I was not sure I wanted to sit with him. It started out simple enough. Dad called and asked if I could hang with Granddad, while my folks went over to a neighboring town to do some business. They didn’t need Pops to keep me; they wanted to see how we got along. It turned out that there was a lot of ground that needed to be worked.
Pops had this big John Deere tractor, with an air conditioned cab. He had me climb in behind the seat, on the padded cab frame. It was the perfect spot for a four year old. Pops asked me how I felt about listening to the radio, and I didn’t think old people ever listened to the radio. Pops took time to explain what he tilled the ground for and what the big arm that put a mark in the soil was for. All he had to do was keep his front tire in that groove and he stayed in line. That is how he lived too. He talked about how GOD and the farmers worked together and that I never need feel alone, because I could always talk to GOD.
I never knew him to go to church after Grandma passed. He didn’t allow me to spend Sunday mornings with him. Maybe he held his own service, one that was suited with coffee and eggs. That was his time. He didn’t share that with me. I had to carry on to Church with my folks and “mind my own business, like Dad reminded me.
We spent a lot of time with GOD, under the sky I no longer recognized. I must have driven forty miles of old county roads with my wife and children in tow, and felt less connected than I ever had. The four people in the car seemed like people I never knew. The man I was returning to say goodbye to, loved me better than anyone ever had. I left him years ago, and he only recently left me, when his earthly existence ended.
I dropped my wife and children off at my folks and drove around to the spots I knew with Pops. I went to the church, the pond, along the field roads, and lastly, drove into Pops’ drive way. I mourned the loss of my very best friend. I had been able to talk to Pops about everything. When I was seeing a girl, or thinking about what classes to take in high school, Pops always listened and had a way of helping me to know what was best for me. He never told me what to do, and he never judged. He was with GOD, somehow different now.
