Someone I Never Knew

There is an old man and his wife who lived on the highway I used to drive to and return home from work upon. For 20 years I drove by their little farm. I always looked as I passed by because it was a joy to see, so nicely kept, so pastoral with a small herd of cows that always looked slick as any around here. The home was always in excellent shape with a nice garage and two outbuildings beyond. There was never anything out of sorts there. The man also worked a day job in town as most small farmers have to do these days just to make a living and save a bit of money for retirement.

One day, and I really don’t know exactly when, the old man retired, or perhaps as so many of us, lost his day job because the place he worked closed down. Because I never had spoken to him, I know not which it was. I did however begin to notice changes on the farm. The small herd disappeared and because I worked an early shift and would pass by going home in the early afternoon I would see him out working in what was his roadside pasture where I had never seen him before. Subsequent trips found him plowing up the old pasture. Then a small greenhouse appeared. The plowed ground was shaped into two foot wide by 30 feet long plots, separated by lawn type grass instead of pasture grass. Later, there were berry plants filling the plowed spaces and a sign went up announcing fresh berries for picking and bedding plants available in the greenhouse.

Though I did not know the man, I felt happy every time I drove past the new berry patch that he was finally retired and obviously happy to be working his soil and growing wonderful plants.

Then the time came for me to no longer be on the road working every day. That was a mixed bag for me, not having to go to a job every day was nice, but losing a sense of worth was difficult to adjust to for a long time. One late afternoon Joyce and I were watching the news when a story came on about a house fire on that same highway. We were not sure exactly where the video was made, but the story ended and we went about our day. The next week we were going to the grocery store and watching to see where the fire had occurred. By now I am sure you know where the fire was. It took two months to clean up the mess and there are no longer signs of the home that was there, no greenhouse, no berry plants, just some neat fencing around a well manicured plot of land. I look every time we pass by and I am always saddened by what I see; or rather more what I don’t see. The vision in my head is of an old couple who lived there all their married life, worked hard, retired and happily took up working a berry farm and living in a home they loved, and then  in the space of a few hours everything in their lives was gone. I know they didn’t die in the physical sense, but I believe their spirits died on that fateful day. My heart grieves for them. I have seen the old man once after the fire. His once tall straight figure was gone, leaving behind an older bent over shadow of the man he once was.