Gone

Her hair floated over her shoulder like water strider bugs over a pond; Playfully dancing across her cooling skin. The sunset cast a warm hue across the rolling hills of golden perennial long grass, spread before her for as far as the eye could see. The wind blew past her nose and her face turned towards the direction of the fog rolling in. She drew a smile and sat back in her seat.

The pick-up truck was old and dusty. Dings and various patches of rust dulled the silver and navy blue paint. She drove slowly over the dirt path, littered with large stones and half-buried boulders. A worn-down building sat gently at the top of the hill. Tarps tied over one side of the open-aired barn loosened from their ropes and flapped in the breeze.

She was in no hurry to reach the top. At this time of day, it felt like everything lingered a little longer; the breeze, the grass, moving in waves like water, the cows down the hill, chomping silently in the distance. She took a deep breath. The scent of wild fennel and warmed dirt brought a flood of casual memories back to her; The memory of the first time she was told what fennel smelled like, the memory of countless summer evenings spent on the top of this hill, watching the day’s end around family, the memory of riding tractors down the backside of this hill, to the pig’s pen for feeding.

Tonight, of all nights, she thought she’d be more focused on the prominent memories from her life. The ones that took her breath away. The moments of firsts. The giddy memories of meeting her husband for the first time, of barn yard dances, of campfires with her cousins. But they surprisingly, and yet happily, were instead a collection of all those normal, dare I say mundane, moments that come together to complete a life.

But of course, she thought. Life isn’t just the destination those wild, contrived, even explosive memories took her too. They were all the little moments conceived in preparing for the date, readying yourself with conversation starters, reading books in the park or planting down at the breakfast table with family on Sundays. Why hadn’t she thought to share that with her family before she left? That even the small moments carried the weight of a life on them.

 

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She stretched her arm out of the truck window and let it bounce along with the drive, fingers feeling the air. She remembered the first pig roast her family had on the farm. There was an earthiness to the smell of the roast she hadn’t expected when they planned the event out and invited half the town to join them there. She was uneasy around the hog, stretched out over a thick piece of metal. She hadn’t eaten meat in 3 years. It had been her idea to move out of the city and take on a farm with her family, but here, the animal sat staring at her. Its mouth forced wide open. It’s legs dangling stiffly under its belly. For a moment, she wondered whether this had been a good idea after all.

That was when she looked up and saw her father. His dark green plaid button up and dusty trousers played the part well of ranch owner, but he wore his faded leather house shoes on his feet. She giggled as she watched him sipping beer with a neighbor and talking ranch politics in his slippers. She turned her face into her shoulder, hoping to stifle a laugh.

That’s when her eyes landed on her mother, surrounded by the town’s children. She had a wooden box in her lap, squeezing it between her knees and cranking a handle over the top of it. Children as young as two and as old as nine, watched intently as mom gave a lesson in churning ice cream. The cubes of ice inside grinding and clapping together as her hand went round and round.

She stood up and walked over to her mother, who looked up at her and smiled. The sun played in the golden blonde curls of mom’s hair, and she remembered her mother in that moment as an angel. “Would you like to be my first taste tester,” mom asked. Eager faces turned to her but not one child protested. She took the spoon out of mom’s hand and swallowed a chilly lump of vanilla bean ice cream. It was pure heaven; delicious in ways that, looking back on it, she could not express. And there, mom just sat, watching her and smiling. “Who wants some?” Hands threw themselves towards her mother as she scooped creamy globs into their bowls.

She turned back around and looked over the crowd of people gathered in the fields, vegetable garden and under the barn roof.  She would never forget this moment as the start of, what felt like, her life.

 

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The days after the pig roast were tough. Farms were a lot of work and the days were long and hot. The grit from sweat and mud layered over her skin like an unwelcome blanket. The scent of fertilizer filled the air from dawn till dusk. They had chased the chickens each night, back into the hen house, for months on end. It wasn’t until one neighbor caught the whole family running wildly around in a field of scattering birds, that they learned that roosting birds find their way back home naturally at sunset. All you had left to do was latch the door before dinner.

Back in the truck, she giggled over the memory. How our need to control so many aspects of our lives actually just put a lot more work on ourselves. Life has a way of figuring itself out if we just allowed it to be.

 

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After their initial first year on the farm, those busy days seemed to relax a bit more. Maybe, it was the fact that life now had a fluid routine. Maybe, it was because the work had built them all up to be lean and athletic. Either way, each day become more rewarding. Each day brought more reason to laugh, to cry, to hold one another, to see a moment as it really was and appreciate life just as it is.

There were several houses on the farm. She could see them fading behind her as the sun began to set off in the distance. She stared at them for a moment, in the truck’s side mirror. The main house sat behind a towering garden of colored flowers and herbs; It’s Victorian peaks reaching up to the sky in a valley of grass and gravel.

Her home was somewhat more meager and cozy than the other. A one-story shack some two hundred feet from the main house, that glowed every night from the fairy lights strung around her front porch. She lived in that small space with her husband. They had married young, at only twenty-two.

When she had told her husband, only 6 months after they married, that she planned to take on a farm with her parents, he didn’t bat an eye. He accompanied her every weekend to the library, where they sat and read everything they could on managing a farm. Just like with children however, nothing could prepare them for the journey from city life to a rural outpost. But her husband never said a negative word. Not when he was forced to get up to tend to the cattle at 4am. Not when the heat cranked up to 100 degrees and the nights never cooled, and she would lay awake dreaming of the air-conditioned condo they had left behind. He blazed through each day, each month, each year on that farm as if he was made for it. As if this was his life’s purpose. At the end of each day, they would drink peach iced tea to the sound of crickets, while resting upon the rails and steps of the old, unsteady porch.

Together, they had come to appreciate the cycle of life on the farm. In the warm months, calves clamored up the hillsides, chasing after their mothers. Squealing piglets fled from their mother’s heavy feet as the sow sought shade or water. Heat lamps projected orange hues over fuzzy chicks in a once storage shed. But they also saw steers led into trailers and taken to the butcher, or a herd of cattle noisily circling a calf killed by a coyote overnight.

Not every moment drew a smile, but every moment taught a lesson. Being on the farm was an experience that proved every action we take in life has a ripple effect. Because of this, life seemed to mean a bit more. Their days were deliberate but kind, easy but tough.

 

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As she neared the top of the hill, she could see her husband seated on a hay bale. His white Western straw hat, loosely sitting on his head as he peered out into the distance. He turned and smiled as he saw the truck approach.

The truck door creaked open and closed with a loud slap. Even that sound reminded her of how beautiful life had become for them here. Her faded brown boots hit heavy on the path as she walked up to him. He stood up to greet her and they paused before taking each other in their arms. After a moments gaze, they lingered over a soft kiss. “Do you remember when I used to meet you down by the creek, in the forest, to make-out when we first moved out here,” he said. She smiled. “I do.” There was more to be said but neither of them spoke. They just sat down as she folded into his arms.

The air kicked up a coolness that gave her goosebumps but she didn’t move. Her husband has like a furnace. Day and night, no matter the temperature, he had a fire she was drawn to like a fly. When she had initially gotten sick, her first inclination had been to sell off all their things and begin traveling, but something about that idea felt like all that excitement would just take away from the fire she had in him. Instead, her and her family had decided to take on this farm.

Now, years later, they sat arm and arm, overseeing the beauty of what they had created. A billion words crossed her lips and died out before she could speak them. A thousand thoughts hid behind the lids of her eyes. Even moving felt like too much of a distraction from the oranges and reds turning softly into hues of blue and purple.

No one said a word until just when the last rays of sun began to take their leave. He stirred behind her and lifted them up to look into each other’s eyes. “It’s time for me to go,” he said. A lump grew in her throat and she reached around him, burying her face in his chest. A deep breath relaxed her muscles as the scent of his musk entered her nose. She pulled back. “I understand.”

“Take me with you,” he wanted to plead. She could see it in his eyes, but he never asked. Instead, he turned around and walked back down the hill, towards their house.

She sat back down on the hay bale. A star became visible as the night sky began to darken. She starred into the twinkling beyond. She had no wonder as to what would happen next. She felt a calm wash over her; A happiness so lovely and sweet, she closed her eyes to its embrace. In an instant, her eyes flooded with white and she slipped into sleep. The memory of the farm etched deep inside her mind. Her family huddled around a roaring campfire. Her husband, staring straight into its wild flames.

And then, she was gone.