Rusting Together
Surrounded by towering trees and out of control weeds, a sagging barn lives out its days in a quiet regalness unappreciated by almost everyone that briefly considers it.
Someone with sharp vision might spot an old pickup rusting away beside it. Some farmer took a last trip to the side of a barn where with a lingering turn of the key it died and the driver’s door shut for a final time.
There’s a good chance hardly anyone is still around for whom either the barn or pickup was something they relied on daily to run and maintain the farm and livestock.
Tools, machinery and farm buildings have a finite life. Equipment that once brightly reflected the sun when a farmer had it delivered to the farm for the first time, soon is replaced by larger, faster and more expensive machinery and the former eventually sits in the grove gathering rust.
Many of us who were once strong, young farms kids with bronzed skin, muscled arms and a full head of unruly hair have grown old too. All around us in a busy world we are reminded both of our former youth and our present age.
If we are fortunate in our dwindling years, we have a ‘pickup’ near us, one that understands the battles of aging as well as we do. I was reminded this week of the privilege it is to live a long life with someone you chose decades ago to walk life’s journey with on this planet.
I watched as a doctor gently rotated my wife’s arms seeking to diagnose debilitating pain she has been experiencing the last couple of weeks. He was looking at her as she is now but as he dealt with her, my mind wandered to a strong young woman holding our first born, of countless nights she slept little as she tended to our growing family, of thousands of loads of washing she did and way too many meals over the years prepared for our family and frequent guests.
I’m pretty much mirroring the condition of this barn and pickup now but am as content as I ever have been knowing I have a companion who walks with me as together we go through the rest of our rusting years.
(Photographed by Isanti, MN)
Rusting Together
Surrounded by towering trees and out of control weeds, a sagging barn lives out its days in a quiet regalness unappreciated by almost everyone that briefly considers it.
Someone with sharp vision might spot an old pickup rusting away beside it. Some farmer took a last trip to the side of a barn where with a lingering turn of the key it died and the driver’s door shut for a final time.
There’s a good chance hardly anyone is still around for whom either the barn or pickup was something they relied on daily to run and maintain the farm and livestock.
Tools, machinery and farm buildings have a finite life. Equipment that once brightly reflected the sun when a farmer had it delivered to the farm for the first time, soon is replaced by larger, faster and more expensive machinery and the former eventually sits in the grove gathering rust.
Many of us who were once strong, young farms kids with bronzed skin, muscled arms and a full head of unruly hair have grown old too. All around us in a busy world we are reminded both of our former youth and our present age.
If we are fortunate in our dwindling years, we have a ‘pickup’ near us, one that understands the battles of aging as well as we do. I was reminded this week of the privilege it is to live a long life with someone you chose decades ago to walk life’s journey with on this planet.
I watched as a doctor gently rotated my wife’s arms seeking to diagnose debilitating pain she has been experiencing the last couple of weeks. He was looking at her as she is now but as he dealt with her, my mind wandered to a strong young woman holding our first born, of countless nights she slept little as she tended to our growing family, of thousands of loads of washing she did and way too many meals over the years prepared for our family and frequent guests.
I’m pretty much mirroring the condition of this barn and pickup now but am as content as I ever have been knowing I have a companion who walks with me as together we go through the rest of our rusting years.
(Photographed by Isanti, MN)