Down and Back

Down and Back                    

By John W. Vander Velden

 

The morning’s sun reflected in the brilliant frozen crystals of the snow that covered fields, blinding the eye and giving no hint to the thermometer’s much sub-comfortable reading.  Bundled near the point of being unmovable Chas walks the country road.  He does not trudge as he wanders, rather steps lively on his morning march.  Each day he ventures out no matter the weather.  Two miles he walks out his driveway and east or west as the impulse leads on Jones Road.  Though he is a busy man, he would have thought retirement would have made him less so, the tall man forces time for these jaunts.  It clears his head.  The neighbor Tom Dellard waves as he passes Chas in his old green Ford Pickup truck.  Tom knows the drill the old man follows and would be more surprised at Chas’s absence than the sight of tall man striding, best he is able on the road.  This is Chas’s neighborhood, if a scattered collection of farms dotting the land could be called one.  Born just down the road and living here all his years, except his stint with the army, the man has seen his far share of changes.  These walks give the old farmer time.  Time to think.  Time to remember.  Maybe even time to prepare.  He walks because he knows he can, and fears the time he cannot.  “The world changes.” He mutters to himself, the frosty mist of his words floating away upon the breeze. Chas wonders how he fits in, what his purpose is, and if he really matters. 

Martha’s passing hit him hard.  Oh how, he had relied upon that woman.  He bites his lip at the word woman.  No, Martha was much more than “some woman”; she had been his whole life.  On this frosty morning he wondered if she knew just how much of his existence his beloved had been.  Maybe that’s why he was walking today.  How easy it would have been to decide that it was just too cold -- to miss one day – this day – that it made no difference.  But he felt close to her when he was alone – which was most of the time – and closest as he walked Jones Road.

Here in the country, alone and away, surrounded by familiar but open spaces, the void in his life apparent.  The weaker would avoid these reminders – the tearing at the scab of un-healable wound.  But Chas finds the strength and strangely a comfort in the emptiness.  The pain might remind of the loss – the terrible loss – but the loss reminds of what has slipped away, and what was, and what he had.  He had a great deal.  Memories connect one thing to another, and in memories Martha lived.  Yes, here on Jones Road his heart knew that she would always be a part of him, more than his wife, more than the mother of their five children.  She was more than a friend – so much more than words could possibly express.  Only his heart knew just how much – and his heart felt Martha so near on these hikes, down and back.

The thermometer showed little red as he had glanced while leaving the back door of the farmhouse.  Ten below was ten below.  In years long past the younger man would scarcely blink, it was January after all, and January can be cold.  Yes, in his eighty-seven years Chas had seen cold weather and blinding snows.  He had also witnessed blazing summers, thunderstorms like the one that had taken the old house.  And he had shared those times as well as spring’s plantings and autumn’s harvests with Martha.  So many years they did without, yet as a team they had struggled but survived, and in the end prospered.  Together they had made the journey.  That is why he walked each day, for he knew that together they had gone down and back.

(655 Words)

            1-13-2015