Farmer "Brown"

                                                           Mom, Granddaddy & Me
                                                                       Circa 1988

"He felt with the force of a revelation that to throw up the clods of earth manfully is as beneficent as to revolutionize the world. It was not the matter of the work, but the mind that went into it that counted – and the man who was not content to do small things well would leave great things undone." ~Ellen Glasgow

http://youtu.be/khxx3sCVhtE [Oh Shenandoah/"Tennessee" Ernie Ford]
http://youtu.be/TFBpIsFdHH0 [Color My World Instrumental/Chicago]

My grandfather died 20 years ago today. It seems like forever since I felt the embrace of his big, strong hug. I was 28 years old when God called him back, and heaven took him away from us. It was the first time I’d experienced the death of someone with whom I was extremely close. I’d lost a couple of friends – one had been born with heart problems and passed when I was in 6^th grade. Another was killed by a drunk driver the week after school let out when I was in the 9^th grade. Those were sad occurrences for me, but this was different. When my grandfather died, it was the first time I truly understood the "Oh my God! I’m never going to see him again as long as I live!" sentiment. It was a hard loss because my grandfather was my "Granddaddy" and all that role entailed. He was the only grandfather I had left, and now, he too was gone. It didn’t matter that I was 28 years old. I wasn’t ready to lose him! It didn’t matter that people marveled that he was 85 and had lived a good, long life. That was of no comfort to me! I’ve never found any comfort in him being "up yonder", as he called it, and the rest of us being down here.

He was a character! I loved him to the moon and back and round and round out beyond infinity. I miss him more. He was born Ryland Brown Whitlock - September 30, 1907, and he left us on June 7, 1992. The irony of his middle name, "Brown", and the fact that he was a farmer doesn’t escape me.

I remember when I first learned of his middle name. He was taking me to the henhouse to gather the eggs for the day. It was one of the highlights of the farm chores that I got to do – going to the henhouse around three o’clock, taking the small basket that was hung outside the door, and going inside that sauna-esque wooden structure that smelled of hot hay and sweaty chickens. It was dense, musty inside there, but I loved it. Granddaddy would toss chicken feed on the floor away from me to divert the chickens’ attention, so that I could get to the nests and retrieve the warm, golden-brown eggs. He taught me how to carefully collect them and place them in the basket so that they didn’t crack or break.

On one particular summer day, before I got inside the enclosed exterior of the chicken coop - the place where they could come out and walk around, my grandfather noticed a nail that had come lose from the fence. It was sticking out from one of the posts just waiting to scratch someone who moved too fast beside it or stumbled upon it. It was slightly rusty, which spelled instant trouble.

"Martha Jhill!" he called, in his loud, sometimes gruff voice. "Move away from there and come on over here," he directed. He lifted me over the fence, before he unlocked it and walked through. He took hold of my hand, making sure I didn’t venture over to the danger spot.

He and my grandmother only called me by both of my names if they were fussing at me over something I had done that my parents would have spanked me for, or I had ventured into a danger zone that might wind up with me getting hurt. Even being a, sometimes, gruff, old farmer, he had panic moments when it came to his grandchildren and something unanticipated, like a rusty nail that had cropped up in our path, which could do us harm. He reminded me in many ways of my father: there was a soft, marshmallow center deep inside him.

After I had gathered the eggs, I looked up at him and asked him what his whole name was. He called me by mine periodically, but I didn’t know his. Suddenly, I was very curious to know that detail about my grandfather.

His hand fisted over mine, swallowing it up as we walked out of the henhouse to make our way back to the house. He made certain to steer me clear of the rusty nail, until he could tend to it. He took the handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow, as I held tightly to both his hand and the basket.

"Ryland Whitlock’s my name," he told me.

I made a silly face. "I know that Granddaddy!" I told him. "What’s your middle name?"

He trudged along, pulling me along with him. "Brown," he said.

I remember my face scrunching up. "Brown?" I repeated back in shocked disbelief, uncertain if he was pulling my leg. "What kind of name is Brown?"

"It’s my name," his voice rumbled as he claimed it.

I looked up at him, needing to see his eyes to make sure he wasn’t kidding me. "That’s a color not a name!" I said with emphatical skepticism.

"Well, it’s my name!" he repeated unwavering.

My brows came together letting my mouth engage before I thought about how the next comments would be received. [Kids and their brutal honesty!] "Wow!" I said, still surprised by the fact. "That’s really your name?"

He nodded that it was.

"That’s not even a good color!" I remember my tone inflected on the good as I mumbled it.

He looked down at me, slightly amused by my observation. "What’s a good color?"

"Purple!" I said without a thought.

"Ah," he grumbled in a tone that was comparable to a hand swatting at something.

It didn’t stop me from continuing. "Purple is the best color, then blue!" I enlightened him. "Pam would say pink first, but it’s purple!" I wanted to make sure he understood the hierarchy, in my world, of color importance with purple being at the top of the list. Brown and beige were down near the bottom close to black.

He was silent as I rambled on.

"I think I would rather have purple as my middle name over Brown," I told him.

"Mm hm," he replied, letting me know that he heard me regardless of whether he agreed or not.

We walked in silence for a bit more before I looked back up at him and asked in complete seriousness. "Why don’t you change it?"

"You don’t change your name, Shorty!" he replied with certainty, then amended his thought. "Unless you’re a girl, and you get married. Then, you can change your last name."

I thought about that for a minute. I didn’t think I’d like being named ‘Brown’. To me, Ryland was a funny enough name without having to attach the unappealing color of Brown to it. I truly felt sorry for him. I liked my name. I was named after my grandmother, then Daddy added the Jhill along with it. My mother stuck the silent "h" in there, making my name seem a little funny too. I wondered if he liked his? I asked him as much.

"Never really thought about it," he mumbled, as we reached the farm house, and he opened the door for me.

The opening of the door and his comment ended further discussion on the matter, as my grandmother came to collect the eggs, and the conversation turned to the cobbler she was about to make using them. I, however, have thought a lot about it over the years.

Shakespeare said that "a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet." I get that. My grandfather by any other name would have still been my grandfather: big and tough, non-talkative, loyal, dependable, honorable, and good. He would have still been a husband, a father, and grandfather. He would have still risen at the same time every morning - long before dawn – dressed and ready to begin his many daily chores by six a.m. He would have still been a farmer.

He worked hard, but he didn’t play much. Occasionally, he’d take his pole and go fishing. Once in a while, he’d take his shotgun and go hunting. There were a few television shows that met with his approval. Fame and wealth didn’t impress him. He reserved his admiration for a good harvest and a fair price for it. He was impressed by a new Ford car. He admired a country singer who could carry a fine tune. Ernie Ford was one of those. Don’t think for one minute that I didn’t notice his favorite vehicle and one of his favorite singers both carried the name "Ford".

There were things about him that impressed me however. I was in awe that he could tell simply by thumping a melon whether or not it was a ripe one. I don’t recall ever tasting anything other than a sweet one that came from his picking. He could whittle too. But, one thing that impressed me the most was late on a Sunday afternoon, long after the supper dishes had been cleaned and before we headed back to evening church service, as we sat on the porch amidst the buckets of shelled peas and shucked corn on the cob, he would pull out his mouth harp, cup his one hand around it and begin strumming it with his thumb. The music he produced from it was incredible. I’d never heard a sound such as that, and my grandfather could play the heck out of that thing! He wasn’t a college graduate, but he was smart. He knew the land. He knew how to work it and how to yield from it. He understood weather, and how to make the most of whatever came–how to plan around it. He understood seeds – when to plant them, how to plant them and what he could expect from them. It sounds easy, but it wasn’t. It was hard, back-breaking work. It wasn’t a job that paid well, but it was vital for the survival of our society, much like teachers.

I don’t think he would have considered himself a teacher, but he was. His lessons involved instructing when to pick a crop and when to leave it on the vine a little while longer. He could peel a tomato in one motion, then turn the skin around until he’d made a rose. I found it an amazing trick because I could never make my peel look like a rose. He could have you take a card from an unmarked deck, then tell you what it was you drew. [Years later, I learned how he did it, but it was a "wow" moment when I was a little kid.] The biggest lesson he taught me was from playing checkers. He always let whichever grandchild was playing against him win the first game to prove to each of us that we were winners. After that first game though, he wiped the floor with us, which made us try harder to be better and smarter at how we played the game with him. It’s amazing the life lessons that are offered in the simplest ways, unbeknownst to you at the time.

He called me "Shorty" because I was no bigger than a minute, as he use to say.

There was nothing any better than sitting in his lap as he drove the tractor - his one, strong arm around my waist, securing me to him while his other steered that humming machine that plowed the land in which we planted those seeds he knew so much about. He truly was a master at what he did. At the end of the day, all of his buckets and pails were lined up to get ready for market, and there was nothing more beautiful than the rainbow he had made with rows of food. There was deep yellow squash; ripe, red tomatoes; bright green bell peppers, watermelons, cucumbers, peas and sugar snap beans; pale yellow ears of Silver Queen corn; dark, violet blue eggplant and the list went on and on. Then, the rows repeated in another rainbow using all the same colors but with fruits as the star attraction. At the end of it all, after he’d removed what he needed for his family, was the basket of those delicious, golden-brown eggs.

His idea of success differed from the vast majority of people. If he had a roof over his head, food on his table, clothes on his back and had provided the same for his family, he was a successful man. He was.

When he died, I asked for three things that belonged to him. I received one of his mouth harps, I got the old, worn checkerboard with the plastic red and black disks, and I got one of his favorite ties that he wore to church. I placed his tie on the quilt rack alongside the quilt that my grandmother had made for me years ago. Upon clearer inspection of it, I noticed a small speck of gravy, no doubt, from the lunch he’d eaten shortly after whichever service he’d been to. A friend had mentioned to me a solution I could put on it to remove the stain, but I wasn’t inclined to do that. It meant more to me in the state that it was in: brightly colored with its slight imperfection. That was my grandfather.

He left us 20 years ago, and I can still feel the pain in my heart as if it was yesterday. I’ve thought about him a lot today – had a few laughs and shed a couple of tears.

The last words I ever said to him were, "I love you, Granddaddy!", and the last words I ever heard him say to me were, "I love you too, Shorty!"

Everyone who knew him though thought the same as I did: that he was a very colorful character. I know that he colored my world with so many shades of the rainbow - from his artful way of saying things to his beautiful array of fruits and vegetables that he spent his adult life growing, cultivating, and harvesting, which I happily got to partake of even when we weren’t visiting the farm. He changed my opinion about the color brown. It’s a great color: understated yet strong, like him. What can I say, it grew on me.

In the 20 years that he’s been gone, I’ve found that some things have not changed as it pertains to him. I still love him to the moon and back, round and round out beyond infinity. I still miss him more...

Take It Easy

                                                               

"Don’t confront me with my failures, I have not forgotten them..." ~Jackson Browne from These Days

http://youtu.be/TJ6kzfj0tRM [Bright Baby Blues/Jackson Browne] *

* Indicates the Holy Trinity of Jackson Browne’s songs for me. The last one is at the end of this post. They are all, however, perfect gems, each in its own right.

I love music! I’ve a varied taste for it, and, as I’ve gotten older, it’s become more important to me. It outweighs the television now in order of importance. I can hear my mother saying "Wow!" as she reads that statement, but it’s true. Music, at this point in my life, is a soul provider; a nurturer; a healer; a comforter; a celebratory tool; and, a good source of entertainment. There are many artists who are on my list of favorites – those "go to" people I seek out when I need a lift, a peaceful, easy feeling, a comfort, a momentary diversion....whatever the need, I fill it with their incredible music.

I have been known to pull into my driveway and sit in the car while I finish listening to a favorite song, regardless of the ice-cream melting in my backseat grocery bag. Some tunes you just can’t cut off in mid-stream. I don’t know, it just seems wrong. There’s one man whose songs, when they come on, if I’m in my car, and find myself nearing my street, make me change course and drive a little longer until it plays outs. The funny thing is that my husband knows this is my practice too. The singer is Jackson Browne. Case in point, Sunday we were coming home from the movies [Snow White and The Huntsman [fabulous movie that gets two thumbs up from our household] and were just about to turn into our development when The Load Out/Stay came on the radio. It’s a longer song, and I knew we’d not even get to listen to a quarter of it, given where we were in correlation to our house.

"Shoot!" I muttered under my breath.

Without missing a beat, Tom glanced over and said. "You wanna drive around for a bit?"

I looked at him and smiled. "Yes, please!" I replied, happily.

And, we did.

As always, his music didn’t disappoint. It brought about a smile and a sway and a softly sung "join in", on my part. When we finally pulled into the driveway just as the song was winding down, I sighed, content and said, "Ah, that was good!"

Moments like that–the peaceful, easy, good vibration kind–are ones that we must take when they are presented to us, because there isn’t a vast surplus of them hanging around. They’re more like grace notes to be taken as a special blessing when offered. Whether one takes them or not is entirely up to one’s discretion, but I find myself taking them more and more the older I get when they’re made accessible to me. I have no qualms about stopping whatever is going on in my life, just for a brief moment, and indulging in the feel good that comes with such a blessing.

I waited 35 years to see Jackson Browne in concert. I started listening to his music when I was 10 years old. He’s one of a special few who have staying power, in my opinion. I know it’s a grand statement to make, but it’s a true one: he’s the one who brought me the most comfort on the night my father died.

I’ve written about this before, but some things bear repeating, and some stories merit a re-listening, if you’re so inclined, and I hope you are. For me, this is one of them. I hope you think so too. As I said, it took me 35 years to finally have the opportunity to see Jackson Browne in concert. I’ve often heard that anything worth having is worth waiting for, and the longer you wait for something, the better it is. I can honestly say that both of those statements hold true in this case. So, we begin:

In March of 2009, it was announced that Jackson Browne would be in concert in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 4^th, which just so happens to be my husband’s birthday. Tom was sitting on the love seat working on his computer when the announcement was made via the television. He glanced over at me and saw my eyes light up and widened as large as saucers. My birthday is nine days after his. He knew what I was thinking.

"Do you want to go?" he asked.

"Do I?" I replied in a do birds fly tone, then offered. "But, it’s your birthday."

"I wouldn’t mind seeing Jackson Browne on my birthday," he told me. [I was going to take him to a baseball game.] "We can postpone the game for a few weeks."

Is he a GREAT guy or what? Yeah. I know. I’m lucky.

My hands dialed that phone number quicker than a speedy mcgreedy, and I had those tickets ordered [good seats too] within 15 minutes. Oh, I was a happy girl!  I couldn’t wait.

The remainder of the story, I’ll condense, and if you’re interested in all the little details, you can find it in my blog entry from last August called "A Joyful Sound". In a nutshell, my husband and I were vacationing in Maine, when my mother called to let me know that my father was in the hospital. He had been taken in the day before. Immediately, I responded by telling her that we could be there in a few days. She encouraged me to finish out our vacation in Maine and come as originally planned, which was at the end of July. Something gnawed at me for a day and a half, and we ended up cutting the trip short, driving home and doing laundry so that we could re-pack the car and head out for Jacksonville. It was July 4^th when we left Maine – one month to the day of the concert; one month before my husband’s birthday; and, one month that my father had left to be on this earth. Little did I know how fortuitous that gnaw in my gut turned out to be. Always listen to them when they come to you, because they’re whispers from God to pay attention. Danger could be lurking. Misfortune could be hovering. Change could be coming for which you need to prepare. It’s an awareness signal. I was so thankful~grateful that I’d taken heed and listened to that gnaw in my stomach. It told me to go even though the situation didn’t appear initially to be a dire one.

It is a gift when we are given time with a loved one whose time is suddenly limited. It is an opportunity to right all the wrongs that have happened between the two of you, and say all the things that need saying, and forgive all the wounds of hurt that need addressing and express all the love and appreciation that needs to be the final say on the relationship. It is a golden opportunity. I would not trade that month for anything. It was a time of complete reconciliation with my father – complete honesty and open conversation. It was a heart song-heart healing month! As Dickens wrote, "it was the best of times and the worst of times", because we knew what was coming, and it wasn’t a finish line that any of us wanted to get to no matter how much a part of life it is. My father offered his last advice to me over the course of those few weeks, before he slipped into that place of twilight where he had one foot here and one foot in the next place, teetering between the two worlds.

The concert had all but been forgotten until a week before its scheduled date in Virginia. Late that Tuesday night, my mother heard my husband and I talking about it, trying to figure out a way that someone could get into our house, take the tickets off the refrigerator and go see Jackson Browne on us. My mother, who at this point in my life doesn’t interject herself into our-my business, budinskied. She had remembered how excited I was the previous March when I squealed to her about those concert tickets. She knew how long I’d waited for that moment to finally get to see him live and in concert. She knew how much it meant to me, and how much I’d wanted to go. She spoke up.

"You’re father wouldn’t want you to cancel those plans," she gave us her food for thought. "You’ve done all you can do here," she told me, as I began to softly cry. "You know it’s just a waiting game at this point, Jhill. You don’t need to stay here waiting for that, and you’re going to have your hands full making arrangements when it comes time for us to bring him home to rest in the family plot. I think you should go to your concert, and I know your father would tell you to."

After a lot of crying, considering, soul-searching and honest evaluation, I listened to my mother, and we left on August 2^nd after stopping by Hospice to visit with my father one last time. I knew I wouldn’t see him again in this lifetime, and it was hard to leave! I did what I knew my father would have encouraged me to do [what my mother already had encouraged] - I looked ahead and moved forward with my life.

I remember late into the night of August 3^rd, praying fervently to God to please keep my father twilighted for, at least, one more day. I wasn’t thinking about the concert. I was thinking about my husband’s birthday, and how I wasn’t certain we’d be able to bear up under the harsh reality of my father leaving us all on that particular day.

On the morning of my husband’s birthday – the morning before the concert, Tom and I spoke of Daddy and wondered how he was doing? I didn’t want sad thoughts to detract from his special day or permeate into it, when there was nothing we could do to make that situation any better. Still, he urged me to call my mother and check on how Dad was doing. She told me that my father continued to hold his own, and that she and my sister were there with him. She spoke to Tom to wish him a Happy Birthday, and reminded us to have a good time. We’d speak the next morning, or so we thought at the time.

Off we went to take Tom for his birthday lunch at a favorite Mexican restaurant. Within the hour, my father had taken flight and left for his return engagement in heaven. The phone call came just as we were walking out the door to leave for Charlottesville. I saw my mother’s number on the I.D. window and took a deep breath to brace myself. Even a steel brace isn’t strong enough to support one from hearing the news that one’s father has died, on their husband’s birthday no less. Surreal doesn’t begin to describe that moment then or now, nearly three years later.

I remember on the drive over, mentioning to Tom my grand idea: that if Jackson Browne sang my favorite song of his, For A Dancer, then I would know that Daddy was safe and sound. Tom wasn’t comfortable with the odds of that statement, because that song wasn’t one that JB typically preformed in concert. He’d begun to perform it in recent years, but it wasn’t a given that it would be part of the set offered that night. Tom didn’t want me to suffer another painful disappointment for the day.

"Sweetie, why don’t you pick another song?" he gently broached.

I knew what he was doing, and I loved him for it.

"I’m not expecting him to sing it, Tom!" I replied, praying that he would, even as I said it. "I’ll be okay if he doesn’t."

"What’s your second choice?" he pushed a little.

"Don’t have one."

The discussion on that particular subject ended there.

It was a beautiful summer evening when we arrived at the amphitheater. It reminded me a lot of the Wolf Trap venue further north where we’d experienced many other great concerts. It was an indoor-outdoor setting. We had great seats indoors in the first section-center stage. I remember Tom getting me situated before he went to purchase me a program. The night was cool and clear. When mountains surround you, even in early-August, the evening is a wondrous time of day – cool. The sky was a lovely shade of bluish-gray with lots of white, fluffy clouds. No one could have believed from looking at that setting that something sad and life-changing had happened earlier in the day. No one that is except for me with my puffy eyes, and my husband with his heavy heart.

But, when the music began, it chased those sorrows away for the briefest of moments. I felt a peace come to me as the sun began to set on the day. I felt a heaviness lift as Jackson Browne’s music soothed and comforted my broken-hearted soul.

Do you believe in miracles? I know I’ve posed that question before. I do. I believe in the mighty awesomeness of God, and I believe in our darkness hours, spectacular gifts can be found if we’re open to the receiving of them. When I heard the first chord of For a Dancer, I gasped with a squeal as tears came to my eyes, and I grabbed my husband’s knee, crying, "Oh, my God!"

My husband repeated the sentiment back to me. We looked at each other briefly, tears in our eyes as I smiled at him, then nestled against him to listen to the song that was about to tell me that my father was okay and safely home.

As if that moment wasn’t glorious enough, the sun and its rays did a move that can only be defined as divine. The setting sun was behind us, and in that moment when Jackson Browne began to sing For a Dancer, rays shown down on him for the entire duration of that song! It was unbelievable to witness that sight and the glorious sound that came from beyond it.

I don’t know who squeezed whose hand harder – me or Tom. I just know that we were both in awe that this moment that I had asked for, dreamed of and hoped would happen, not only happened, but did so in such brilliantly spectacular format.

As the saying goes, "oh the comfort....the in-expressible comfort...."

I never hear a Jackson Browne song now and not think of that moment.

I guess that memory has been on my mind especially these last few days because, he’s coming to Richmond the end of July. I’d like to see him again without a heavy heart~we’ll see. I’ve also been thinking about it because Father’s Day is just around the corner, and how could I not? I think the main reason I’ve been thinking about it, though, is because a family friend lost her father a few days ago. He’s blazing his trail of glory homeward now, and we’re going to his viewing tonight. I wonder if there’s a special song that would bring his daughter a modicum of comfort and peace as she embarks on this life-changing moment that she’s just entered? It’s made me remember mine.

A friend told me that I should write to Jackson Browne and tell him this story. I haven’t a clue how to go about doing that –reaching him, and it’s not my practice to chase down a celebrity. They get enough of that from the paparazzi! It’s enough to know that it happened. It’s enough to know that he was part of something so much more profound than his profoundly penned lyrics. That being said, I hope someday he learns of the inexpressible comfort he gave to a good man’s daughter on the night that he left his life and jumped aboard that blazing light of glory that connected heaven to earth–the one that shown down on Mr. Browne as he sang a song to my father’s grief-stricken daughter, while she rested her head against her husband’s shoulder as we celebrated not one but two birthdays - my husband’s earthly one and my father’s birth into heaven. And, I hope that one day he learns that there’s a woman in central Virginia who will not turn his music off until the song is completely sung. When I find myself in a car close to home, and a Jackson Browne song comes on the radio, I do two things: I take a drive, and I take it easy...

http://youtu.be/IU1rZa8Ur_Q [For A Dancer/Jackson Browne]