The Old Man and the Boy
by Lee A Thompson
*****
[This was a copyrighted story entered in a competition. The original had no photos, so I’ll add none now. It was published one year to the date after my dad’s death.]
For the little boy, it was a time of innocence. He looked up and watched in wonder and awe as three eagles soared high overhead. Three horses grazed quietly in the fenced field next to the small house and the sound of frogs could be heard from the small pond far beyond the barbed-wire fence. Having spent his early years in the big city, this was all so new. Things would change to be sure. A few months later wrapped presents would fill the small living room of his new home; so different than Christmas mornings past. Right now, he twinged in fear of the chickens. A rattlesnake made his home under a slab of cement that doubled as a back porch. He would lie down and eye the coiled snake from a safe distance, but it was the chickens he really feared. He hated them, knowing one day their claws and beaks would surely rip and tear at his eyes and skin. His gaze drifted to the old wooded area behind the house. In back of the home another barbed-wire fence kept the cows from intruding into the large yard in front of the home, but there was something about the trees that fascinated and beckoned him.
When I first arrived, she told me he was down at the pool taking a quick swim. While he had expected me, he just didn’t know exactly when I’d be there. The pool was a mile away and, as I moved towards the front door to walk over to meet him, she offered to let me take her bike but I turned her down. Within the first few hundred yards I wished I had taken her up on the offer. The heat was unbearable. The hot afternoon sun was blazing down and with the temperature in the 90’s, it felt like an inferno. Finally arriving, I walked in and looked around the pool area but he was nowhere to be seen. Making my way to the shower area, I saw him standing, just having finished dressing. I greeted him with a warm hello, but at first it was as if he didn’t recognize me. Oh, he had been expecting me, just not at the pool. A cheerful smile spread across his face and his eyes twinkled when he realized it was me. We exchanged a warm hug before making our way to his car. The one mile ride was almost as bad as the walk over. The air conditioner barely had a chance to cool the car and we were back to where I had started my journey in search of him.
He was a man of contrasts to be sure. Certain things, matters of right and wrong, were black and white to him. Still, it didn’t mean his mind couldn’t be changed on issues of the day. I remember his support for the war and the arguments or heated debates it caused, but even he would come to change his mind on the war that could have taken his son to a faraway land. I had assumed it was his own decorated career in the military that made him such an adamant supporter or, maybe it was just because he was so much older and out of touch – but I was wrong on both counts. After all, how could a man with that background later oppose another war – and even support those that would burn the flag he had fought for – because he understood the rights for which he stood and fought; and that was him, standing for what was right even though he himself would never have done the same thing. So many letters were written to members of Congress, to the Supreme Court of the United States demanding explanations of decisions, and even to the President of the United States. Answers were all he ever wanted so he could form his own opinions, or perhaps influence another person. Oh sure, when he challenged the Internal Revenue Service, he lost; but he fought his battles hard, proud, and always as a gentleman believing in fair play. His last fight with medical doctors and hospitals would consume the remaining years of his life, but he fought that battle hard and without letting up despite the many obstacles that would have deterred other men to the point of giving up, laid out a case as well as an experienced trial lawyer and asked but one thing – for what was right, fair and just-nothing more, nothing less.
A gentleman – yes, he was gentle in every respect. A curse word, “damn”, had escaped his lips once, but only once before his beloved wife died. I suspect he knew fear, but somehow he overcame it. That is the definition of courage and bravery after all; the innate ability to have fear but triumph over it.
Once a little boy was being accused of lying by a man several inches taller and maybe 40-50 pounds heavier than the man. The other man, a former professional football player, well-muscled and much younger towered over him glaring, but this gentle man stood his ground ready to fight if he had to because in this case, it was right. The larger man, unable to intimidate him, must have seen the piercing eyes of the smaller, older man and the look of determination on his face and finally backed down in front of others. The little boy looked on in amazement and actually even horror during the confrontation, but at the same time, with admiration. The older man didn’t want a fight but there was no doubt he would have engaged in what seemed to others sheer nonsense – but only, again, because in this instance it would have been the right thing to do. The little boy took a lesson with him from the experience about family and standing tall in the face of adversity and overwhelming odds even if he didn’t always live up to it later in life.
I arrived June 18th, just nine days after they had celebrated their anniversary. Arriving back at the home, she greeted us with a smile. It was a frail smile. She was once again fighting cancer for the second time in her young life, but did so bravely and with humor. She would succumb to another bout of cancer, her third such battle, less than three years later. But, the humor and strength she exuded in the first two contests would not leave her in the third and final round.
On a Christmas visit, she sat next to her son at a counter on a bar stool in her home. She explained how she had had a chemotherapy treatment scheduled for three days before the new year, but the doctor canceled it because of New Years Eve coming up. She had joked with the doctor that she wasn’t planning on going out dancing that night and then turned to her son, swinging her feet back and forth as she sat on the high stool, smiled and said, “Look, I’m dancing!” The smile changed to a weak laugh and a tear formed in the corner of her son’s eye. She was dying but always seemed to comfort others rather than the other way around as it should have been. Less than 30 days later, a cold January wind would greet that same son walking slowly as a pall bearer carrying the heavy casket to her final resting place.
However, on that June day I was there for two reasons. One was a holiday of sorts, Father’s Day was Jube 19th, and the other to celebrate the now belated anniversary. I had sent him a card with three handwritten paragraphs about support, love, family and recalling how much closer we had grown over the past few years. As an aside I happened to mention the old homestead and the fondness he instilled in me for the woods. The appreciation of the outdoors was perhaps the greatest gift given me by both of them. The old woods behind the small home was, for me, a sanctuary. It was a place of solitude, not loneliness, and I had spent so much time there in my youth. An old pipeline ran through a swamp to railroad tracks almost a mile away. Sometimes the green swamp water covered it and I had been warned of the water moccasins that swam just below the surface. During the summer months I was in the woods almost every day. There was a tree felled, I suppose by lightning, that I would lean against and daydream about being a knight rescuing damsels in distress or, maybe pitching or batting in the seventh game of the World Series. It was always the last inning and the final strike to the final batter or, down three runs, me hitting a grand slam home run in the bottom of the ninth. Either way, the game always ended in a victory for me and my team.
I knew a name and made a phone call. Yes, we could not only hike the old woods, we could even go into the home and walk around. The arrangements were made for the next day. The rest of the evening, we just talked about many different things from old memories to current events. Of all the things we spoke about, he talked about the war – which struck me as odd. Despite my continuing interest over the years, he seldom talked about it, but this night was different for some reason. He didn’t talk about heroics, he talked about young men dying on the beaches of a foreign land and the many crosses scattered in large and small cemeteries he had seen in a return trip when the two of them backpacked and biked across Europe. It was ironic my arrival coincided with his first trip to Europe almost 50 years earlier to the day, but that trip was anything but a vacation. He spoke with a sense of sadness recalling those days. I glanced over toward the fireplace looking at the small display of medals he had earned. He hadn’t put them out, but she had. They were a gift from his son, the son that had been given the original medals at a young age and promptly lost them. It would be years later and a letter to the Department of Defense, but they arrived as a birthday gift. Upon review of records by the Department of Defense, or the Army, one had been upgraded to a Silver Star. It was believed many men would have been proud, but that wasn’t the feeling the man exuded. Oh, they were accepted graciously, but it was evident he didn’t really care that much about the medals. They were things of a time past but now, with more important matters on his mind, they were nothing more than a few pieces of bronze and silver metal and maybe to him they always were. Otherwise, if they had been important, why would he entrust them to an irresponsible young boy in the first place?
The next morning we were up early. He was always up early back then. A quick breakfast and another phone call to make sure everything was still good to go. It was. She wanted to go too but even with her years of hiking and biking experience, disease left her weakened to the point she wouldn’t be able to do what was planned for the day. She bid us a fond farewell as we left with the promise of dinner when we returned and the demand to be told everything. We soon arrived at what once a small home in the country. It had been added onto over the years, and what was once probably 700-800 square feet of living space was now almost twice as large.
The addition was added to where an old bedroom for a young boy once stood inside the small house. It wasn’t really a bedroom, but an uncarpeted walk-through room from the main living area to the back room of the small country home built by the man’s father-in-law.
The small pasture next to the home where the three horses had once pranced was gone, as was a small pond. Now it was a large yard area. The grasses that once grew wild were mowed. A detached garage he had built was still standing, but the old barn in the field was gone. Even the fence behind the home was gone but the same long driveway, once lined with towering poplar trees, leading to the home still split the large yard into two parts.
Years earlier a young boy would learn the art of pitching from the man in that very yard. Sure, the kid would throw wildly and many times one of them would search the weeds just beyond the barbed-wire fence of the side yard for the baseball. It was a yard the youngster would moan about in the hot summer months when it was his job to mow each side for a mere two quarters. Fifty cents was probably a lot of money back then when you could buy six candy bars for a quarter, but still, it was hot work to be avoided at all costs. There was a riding mower but the young boy pushed an old, heavy mower. An old football, the first one the young kid ever had, still sits in his home even today. As a young boy, he and the man would throw it around outside. The young boy would run silly pass patterns that made him laugh and giggle, but the man was patient and would finally throw a long spiral pass to the kid.
It’s hard to know what he noticed or what he was thinking. Did he even notice these things? Did he notice the old swing set that stood at one time to the right of the garage where a couple of kids put on a circus for family and neighbors was gone? Did he even remember the small sandbox with a homemade cover to protect it from the elements that, with an old canvas tent pitched over it, doubled as a clubhouse, were gone as well? Did he notice the barbed-wire fence just behind the home that held cows and black Angus in a large field was gone too as well as the huge pasture area? Now, a field of wild flowers and tall grass replaced the animals that on occasion broke through and had to be rounded up and caught by him.
The man purchased a bicycle for five dollars for the young boy. It was a horrible looking monstrosity, but still, the boy was excited at having a bike to ride. It didn’t have any fenders and someone had painted it a hideous blue with outdoor paint. The young boy learned to ride a bike but on his first try on his own, for some reason, he would forget how to use the brakes letting the barbed-wire fence stop him as the older man chased behind trying to rescue him from the cuts and bruises he would suffer on that first fateful bike ride of his young life.
A look to the heavens and it was remembered how a youngster once looked in awe at three eagles circling high overhead many years before. The thoughts of so many different experiences flooded my mind, but those were interrupted by the sound of a door opening and the appearance of a man stepping just outside saying hello and inviting us in. The old brown oil furnace in the living room was gone. It had been the only source of heat in the small home at one time and the winter cold could be fierce. In a way, nothing looked the same anymore, but in another, remnants of the old place were there. It didn’t matter it was so different; it was a good feeling nonetheless. Still, there was a mission to accomplish. A hike in the old woods behind the home to find the pipeline. Thanking the owner for allowing us in, we said our good-byes to him and departed for what would be maybe a four or so mile journey.
The heat was unforgiving. Each of us carried a canteen of water and we made our way through the field. Walking through the tall grasses we came to the woods and when entering, just beyond the tree line, we saw that the grand old tree a young boy once rested against on hot summer days was still there. A large number of streams and creeks met us as we hiked. I didn’t remember them, but he remembered them well. Through the woods we traveled toward the old pipeline. The swamp was still there but the two old pipes crossing it couldn’t be found. It wouldn’t be until later we would find they had been removed years earlier. We hiked into the swampy waters hunting for them, but to no avail. The green water topped our hiking boots and the smell was a heavy, pungent one, but we continued our search undauntedly. We turned away and headed another direction and came to a place I remembered well and looked at the old maple trees.
Years earlier, a young boy and his sister walked the woods, with their father, each Easter while their mother prepared dinner. The brother and sister armed with shot glasses, with the aid of their father, would pull the lids from the buckets hanging from the trees and, dipping the small glasses inside, partake of the sweet sap.
Giving up on the pipeline, we turned another direction and walked deeper into the woods. It wasn’t hard to do, it was a large area and years of building homes and development had somehow left it untouched. Turning in yet another direction we made it to where the railroad tracks once were. The area was now a nature preserve – a bog. Neither of us knew when the tracks had been ripped up and out, nor why. It was probably to make way for the preserve I guess.
The railroad tracks were a place to play for the young boy. It was almost as good as being in the woods and provided mostly fun times. A foot race with the man for almost two miles into town that the man let the boy gleefully win. Years earlier the young boy was told by the man a train had just gone by. The youngster was puzzled, but inquired how the man knew. “Because I can see it’s tracks,” the old man laughed. A corny joke but one remembered and repeated by the boy that would one day grow older and tell the same joke to his daughter. On the other hand, these were the same tracks on which the young boy and the man’s father-in-law would be struck by a train at an unmarked crossing causing the man to experience anguish and maybe even fear in the immediate aftermath over a situation he had no control over. While the man may not have had the courage to overcome whatever fear he may have felt for this reason as in times past, the hand of fate let both the boy and his grandfather live.
We had been through thorn apple trees receiving small punctures for our efforts and now we moved east through thick weeds he called “saw back stems”. Small cuts and scratches creased our arms as we blocked our faces pushing through the dense area. The road was ahead and we exited the woods. Both of us were now covered in sweat. We made our way up the road back to the old home to get the car, stopping to drink from our canteens and to take a couple pictures. An old railroad tie pounded into the ground, at one time a fence post no doubt, stood along the side of the country road. Placing the camera on it and setting the timer, we snapped a couple pictures of ourselves and then trudged up the road to return and get the car.
Our trip had brought us full circle but it wasn’t the end of the day for us yet. We went to an old cemetery and walked around. He told me stories of the people buried there and recalled the river he swam in as a kid. The once clear waters of his youth would become filthy by industrial pollution and one day the river would become famous for actually catching on fire. We talked of many things that day and I recalled others during the brief moments of silence. So many pleasant memories, but it was time to go home. She met us when we arrived and it was time for a quick dinner and sharing the experiences of the day with her. But, it was getting late and I had to leave for a long drive home. He insisted, as he always did, that I take some food and coffee with me. I always turned down the offer of food but always took the cup of coffee. Still, it was impossible to leave without taking some food, no matter how little. He insisted and there was no other way but to take him up on his offer. There was always sadness when I got in my car to leave, but I don’t know, this time was different, at least for me.
As I pulled out to start my journey home, I reached into my pocket to grasp a small, flat rock I had picked up in the woods that day. I was always picking up rocks from trails around the country, but this one I now keep on the television in my home next to a picture of us taken that day. The flat surface of the rock is inscribed with the words “The Old Woods Hike With Dad June 19, 1994” written in indelible ink. That small rock and three photographs, two of us together and one I snapped of him from behind in the woods, are treasured memorabilia, and even more poignant now. They are the basis of a cherished memory today. For a few short hours I had returned to my childhood with my dad, a place many say you can never go back to. Those people are wrong – you can indeed go back.
* * * * *
On April 7th last year, my dad died. Despite his age, it was completely unexpected. Maybe it shouldn’t have been. He was 14 years older than my mom and no one in his family lived to a very old age. Both of his parents died when he was young, one brother barely made it to 50, a sister reached her mid-50s, another brother lived to be 70 and a final brother had predeceased him as well. The brother that lived to be 70 years of age was the oldest anyone to that time had lived in his immediate family and on the day of the hike with my dad, he was 74 years old. He had matched me step for step through the woods and swamp. Even at a few months past 82, depressed by the loss of his life companion, he had started riding his bike again just a couple weeks or so earlier just he had done every year before. Oh, he complained about not being able to ride more than 4 to 6 miles at a time because of a rare blood disease he contracted in 1998, and of course blamed his age. Arguments that for his age he was doing more physically than many men half his age fell on deaf ears-almost literally deaf because of a refusal to get good hearing aids or keep working batteries in the ones he did wear. Through diet and exercise, he had a cholesterol level of a newborn, and while his weathered face revealed his age, his muscled legs had the elasticity of an 18 year-old athlete. Yes, he would remain a man of contrasts even to the time of his death.
For seven days he laid in a hospital bed and for six of those days I would be there with him watching him struggle to live, or maybe to die. It was hard to watch him lying there, this man that at one time played semi-pro baseball and basketball, had hiked deserts and mountains and remained so active all of his life. On the seventh day, just minutes before my sister and I arrived, he died. We had walked together into the intensive care unit but when I saw the door to his room closing, I knew immediately – I knew the next time I saw him his body would be still in that small room and it was. I sat quietly in the room holding his hand and feeling his face, my hand moving slowly over his forehead into his thick shock of white hair over and over again. His face grew colder and tears ran from my eyes and down my cheeks, but I couldn’t stay. I knew my sister wanted some time alone with him and I silently got up to leave. When she exited the room we talked and it was time to go. But all of a sudden, I couldn’t, not just then. I had to go back into that room and see the “old man” one more time.
It was the young boy that used to mow the lawn, spend his time in the woods, throw a baseball wildly into the field or catch a long pass that had to go back one more time. He had to see him one last time, maybe even tell the man something – the man that cared for and protected him as a youngster; the man that taught him to grow as a man – he had to see his dad and tell him thanks, maybe explain a few things and let him know one more time he loved him.
I asked the nurse if I could go back one more time and she nodded. I sat next to the man lying on the bed, the man that had raised and instilled certain values in me. My hand stroked his and I spoke soft words to him. I talked as though we were engaged in a conversation telling him so many things that had been said before, but needed repeating one more time. Maybe I had let him down many times, but he, and my mom, talked about both my sister and me with so much pride to others. So, am I sad now as I write? Yes, I am. But when I’m finished I’ll pick up that small rock, glance at the photograph and recall a cherished Father’s Day back in 1994. It was on that day I had the honor and privilege of walking with my dad and sharing a moment in time with him that can never be taken away from me. For that, I am thankful.
There was another reason for me to be thankful. My dad had had the opportunity to the meet the woman I will one day marry. I remember, maybe it was the first or second day in the hospital, reminding him of the marriage as she stood on the other side of the small hospital bed holding his hand, seeing him smile, happy with the prospect of my future wife and his daughter-in-law to be. He was weak but turned toward her telling her he loved her and she repeated the words back to him and of course, my dad and I shared our moments of expressing our love for each other each day in the hospital until the day came he was unable to speak any longer. He was no longer lucid toward the end, except for one brief moment when his eyes opened, his head raised slightly and turned toward me. His hand came up and gestured in a wave and he smiled for a brief moment. It was eery in a way; almost a grin, but still, it was smile just the same and one I had seen before. I’ve always wondered about that – wondered what he was thinking that last moment his eyes opened a final time and the once familiar smile flashed across his face for the last time. A final good-bye with a smile wishing me and the others gathered around happiness? Maybe just a sign it was okay? I don’t know. My mouth opened quickly to speak, but just as quickly his expressive eyes closed and his head fell back to the pillow. All I wanted that moment was one more chance to tell him something – anything, but it was too late. Still, I have the one final moment seeing the look of love in his eyes, the smile on his face and farewell wave burned into my memory forever and it’s not a bad thing at all.
What I know is it wasn’t supposed to end that way, but it did. Still, because of the expressed love we had for each other, I can move forward a year later without the regret so many people experience wishing they had said things left unspoken. Yeah, we had the opportunity to do those things so many times and we always took advantage of it. Regrets? In the sense of missed opportunities, no!
So Dad, and Mom too, while my heart is filled with sadness at losing both of you, it remains filled with joy at the memories we made together. A picture of you both sits prominently in my office and many days as I walk in to start another day I look at that picture with a wink and smile. Are you missed – yes! Are you forgotten – no! Are you still loved – absolutely!
The young boy would move to another home several years later. One night his parents went out leaving him and sister at home. The boy was old enough to stay home alone and watch his sister, and besides, his parents would be home early. The boy laid in his bed, his thoughts turning to his parents. It was the first time they had left him alone at night. Horrible thoughts raced through his mind causing him to wonder if maybe something bad had happened. He watched the clock with tears in his eyes. What if they died? They didn’t of course, but the thought left him shivering in bed awaiting their arrival back home that night. They came home and the boy breathed a sigh of relief. They would always be there for him – forever he thought. In a very real sense, he was wrong. Still, in another, he was right.
Just as had happened that night and in times far in the future, they would encompass his heart and be with him always.
* * * * *
Published April 7, 2004
