Sitting on the Front Porch at the Farm

by Mary Jane Adams

7.21.06—Sitting here on the front porch at the farm, I’m not quite ready to leave. I fixed dinner for Dad and me from a few cans in his pantry—baked beans and green beans with some of his favorite hot dogs. Dad suggested that some applesauce would be a good addition, so we had that too. It's so hard to get him to talk much about what he's really feeling since his health has been changing so rapidly over the past year. But it's always been tough to get him to talk about whatever he’s feeling.

So we talked about the food, and how good watermelon is on a hot summer afternoon. We talked about his oxygen machine and if it would be a good idea to keep some extra oxygen tanks around the house in case he gets short of breath and needs them. He gave a dismissive wave to our discussion of doctors and health care providers.

"They haven't invented a fountain of youth pill yet," he said.

"But Dad, the medicine helps the symptoms," I told him. "They know it can't cure emphysema, but it can make you more comfortable."

He sat in stoic silence clutching the oxygen tube that he now keeps constantly by his side. A series of shallow breaths put awkward pauses in our conversation, but after a lifetime of unpredictability, it's actually what I expect. It's best not to anticipate anything when we talk and visit. Just be and enjoy the gift of our time together and the precious breaths that allow us to share whatever we can talk about.

Dad is sleeping on his beloved couch. What's a Dad without his couch? Miserable! He is enjoying a well-deserved nap.

From the wrought-iron chair on the porch, I can hear late afternoon birds. I think I’ll record them. There are moments you want to hold in your heart forever.

I record the mockingbirds and rap music from the car of a passerby. As quiet returns, I remember playing croquet on this lawn and that Dad never reprimanded me or made me feel bad for being a weird eccentric kid. He always was kind to me. Tonight was like that. He complimented the dinner I made and we had a nice visit. I've always had a sense of when it's time to go. And I had that sense tonight. It's important to know when to go and let him rest.

Now I hear the clip-clop of a horse pulling an Amish man in a buggy down the paved road in front of the house. He waves as he passes. What an anachronism in this landscape—me sitting here on the front porch overlooking a corn crop, typing this story into my cell phone with my thumbs while a bearded man in a straw hat and suspenders waves at me from a horse-drawn buggy as he rides in front of my Dad's house—like my grandfather might have done as a teenager at the turn of the century, long before Dad was born.

This gadget is just annoying. I will never get used to typing with my thumbs.

I am the one out of place here. I love this farm, but it's no longer my home. I come here but have to stay in a hotel with high-speed Internet access because of my job. The work I do now is so different from driving a tractor from dawn to dusk to prepare a field for Dad to plant a corn or soybean crop. Now he rents out all of the farm except for a small patch behind the house. He paid one of the renters to plant it for him. At the end of the season, Dad will pay him to harvest it. The corn I am looking at across the road is not Dad's. I would like to take a walk around the field as I have so many times before. But I dare not disturb the renter's crop.

I feel like a stranger. I work in a cubicle where seasons and rain and sunshine have no effect at all on the livelihood of the company. But this is where I grew up and started in this world. Now I am a technogeek working in the software world. Then I was just a creative kid on a farm who loved sunsets and helping her Dad get the crop out between the spring rains.

The sun is setting. I will go by Mom's grave tomorrow. I want to sit here a little while longer in silence without gadgets.

___

A little more than a week after I wrote this, my Dad passed away. It is a snapshot of one of the last days I spent with him.

Dad's gone.
The cicadas sing a mournful song.
The sad afternoon slips into their rasping refrain.
What next?
I try to just be present with this fading moment.
Life is an afternoon that slips away when you turn to do a busy task.

Mary Jane Adams is a long-distance Writergrrl from Memphis, where she hosts FlowRadio, an eclectic music program on WEVL-FM, and is a technical writer and senior process analyst at FedEx. She can be reached at maverickmary@yahoo.com.