I have been blogging about 12 years, although I don’t have all the posts from all those years. I do have some and I found this post today from around Memorial Day in 2014 while looking for another post. I thought I’d share it here again today and maybe share some of my past posts like Mama’s Empty Nest has been doing recently.
I remember the day Harry gave my son the VFW hat. We were at a celebration at the local Veterans of Foreign Wars where they were honoring Harry because he was moving from the area to live with family.
I had taken Jonathan with me so I could grab a photograph for the local newspaper, but also so I could say goodbye to Harry, who I had interviewed years ago about his service during World War II. We had visited Harry at a nursing home a few weeks earlier while also visiting my aunt. My son, Jonathan, was 7 at the time.
I told Jonathan that Harry had fought for our country during World War II and to free the Jews during the Holocaust, something we had been talking about one night when he had asked me some historical questions. I remember how horrified he was about Hitler treating the Jews so awful and because of his age, I left out the worst of it, mainly only telling him how much the Nazis had hated the Jewish people and how wrong it was. After I introduced Jonathan to Harry, who was in the hallway sitting in a wheelchair, Jonathan, without prompting, saluted him.
Harry was touched and overwhelmed. As I sat and chatted with Harry, often having to almost shout since he had lost some of his hearing by then (he was almost 93), Jonathan drew a picture of Harry in the war, jumping out of airplanes and fighting in the Phillipines. Again, Harry was touched and impressed with Jonathan.
A week later when we attended Harry’s farewell celebration, we were surprised and emotional when Harry asked to see Jonathan and handed him two of his VFW Commander hats. Harry was thrilled to see Jonathan and smiled and talked to him, thanking him again for the salute and the picture.
We were definitely sad a year later when we heard Harry passed away. He had dedicated more than three decades to the local VFE post, where he served four years as post commander, 20 years as post quartermaster, 10 years as district quartermaster and three years as district commander. During his time at the VFW he had been named an All-American post commander, an All-American quartermaster three times, and also received several awards through the VFW.
When Harry passed away the new post commander, Dan Polinski, told the local paper about the countless times Harry and others of Harry’s generation had stood in all kinds of weather to honor veterans who had passed away. Dan remembered one specific day where the rain was coming down, cold and stinging, against their faces.
“The younger of us, and I use that term loosely, said to Harry, O.C. Spencer, and some of the other World War II guys, ‘Listen, you guys, don’t stay out in this.’ The wind was whipping and it was brutal,” said Polinski. “Harry, and O.C., and all of the old crew — all of the old World War II guys who had stood with this Color Guard guy at many other funerals — just said, ‘No. He would do this for us.’” (Morning Times, Sayre, Pa. August 1, 2014)
I can attest to Dan’s story because I remember those rainy Memorial Days (in fact, I remember more rainy Memorial Days in Bradford County than sunny ones. It seems it always rains when there is a parade or a ceremony to honor veterans here.) I covered a few of those ceremonies for local newspapers and when I first saw Harry, and fellow World War II veteran O.C. Spencer, standing out in inclement or sweltering hot weather, I wondered why someone didn’t get them a chair or an umbrella, or usher them inside. Looking back I know it was because they stood not only to honor the fallen and those who served but to honor our country. They did what so many of us don’t, or won’t, do. They did what they’d done years ago when called to fight; standing when others turned or walked away.
We keep Harry’s hats sealed inside the clear plastic case he handed them to Jonathan in and we keep them in an honored spot next to a sealed American flag given to Warren’s family after his great-grandfather passed away. And when we do pull the hats out we not only remember the man who stood at every Memorial and Veterans day service, no matter the weather, in full uniform, honoring those who served and those who fell, but the man who came home from war, worked with troubled youth with his wife for a decade, worked hard at every job he did, and also showed us how to persevere during the toughest times in life.
It’s hard sometimes to look at the local Color Guard during Memorial Day services and not see Harry standing there, rifle propped against his shoulder, back straight, jaw firm, gaze steady. I find myself choking up at the memory of the dedication he showed and how a new generation is missing out on the lessons of perseverance his mere presence there taught us.
What is important, I remind myself, isn’t that he isn’t here anymore, but that he was there at all and that there are people still around who will work to keep his memory and legacy alive.
My cellphone rang at 7:30 a.m. after a rough night of sleep. I struggled to find it where I’d dropped it somewhere in the sheets and looked at it with bleary eyes.
Dad. Uh-oh. Was something wrong? I’d better pick it up.
My dad sounded panicked. But my parents and the rest of the family was fine.
“Did you leave your plants out last night?” he asked hurridly.
“Uh..yes?”
“We had a frost last night. Listen, if you go out and sprinkle them lightly with cold water you can wash the frost off and maybe save them.”
That’s when I realized. . . taking care of a garden is way too stressful.
I don’t even have the garden planted yet and I’m already stressed about the plants. They’re in a tray outside my door and each night I go to bed and wonder if the deer will come this far down and eat them. I planted a few tomatoes and Dad says he’s pretty sure they won’t eat those. Deer don’t like tomato plants but they like shrubs and carrots and green beans and anything else they can get their mouths on, I guess.
We will see.
If I don’t give up on the garden all together. I still have to stretch a fence around the garden, which is why I haven’t planted the other plants just yet. I would like to plant carrots but my dad says they are a pain and probably won’t grow in my soil. I’m still going to try it, even though the topsoil we picked up really is quite awful and rocky. Who knows. It doesn’t hurt to try.
I’m still reading the same books and watching the same shows, for the most part. For books: Sweet on You by Becky Wade and then switching off with A Light in the Window by Jan Karon. These are books that are filling a type of comfort reading for me.
I’ve also read the first chapter of Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes by Kenneth E. Bailey. I’m planning a separate post on that book at a later date, but I can say for now that the book is broken down into simple, short chapters and it’s fascinating. I have a feeling it is going to spin my view of the real Jesus on it’s head, which I’m excited to have happen since it is coinciding with my watching of The Chosen.
If you haven’t heard about The Chosen before (or missed when I mentioned it before), it’s a TV series based on the life of Jesus and is available on The Chosen site, The Chosen app, and on DVD via their site. Purchases of the DVD help to support series two, which is currently being written. The Chosen has fictional aspects within the true story of Jesus in that it offers backstories of some of the most important people of the Bible – Simon (Peter), Mary Magdalene, Jesus’, the disciples, Nicodemus and many other supporting characters. This is not your typical Bible retelling.
My 13-year old son and I have been watching it for homeschooling and he said “I like how this makes the people of the Bible seem like real people.”
And that is what the show does. It shows the humanity and authenticity of the people we’ve spent our lives reading about on the page. I love how the show portrays Jesus as I feel he really was. So many movies about Jesus show him as stoic and serious and just very . . . how do I put it? Heavy and dramatic.
But in The Chosen, Jesus laughs and jokes and relates to his followers as any other person in real life would. It shows us a new view of Jesus. A view that he is God but he was also man.
Even if you aren’t a Christian, I’d encourage you to watch the show anyhow because it is very engaging and tells the story of people, not religion, which I believe is what our relationship with God should be – the story of us, not of what the world sees as simple “religion.”
Although the books I’m reading and the shows I’m watching are the same, I’m listening to some different things this week, including a new-to-me group The Dead South. Their language on some songs are not “clean”, just as a warning. (I always hesitate sharing music that might have some hard language because I don’t want to offend any of the Christian followers I have, but hopefully they won’t judge my heart for liking some of the songs, but not the language. )
We are on Chapter 9 already of The Farmer’s Daughter and I will tell you I’m not sure what’s coming after Chapter 11 because I haven’t hit a writer’s block but I have hit a challenge of where I want to put certain chapters or events and how I want to write a couple of them. I also worry about the chapters I share on the blog being too long, but well, if they are too long for you, just don’t read them. *wink*
Let me know in the comments if you’re falling in love with the characters as much as I am and what direction you hope to see the story take.
If you’re interested in other fiction pieces I’ve written you can find them here on the blog (links at the top of the page), or on Amazon and B&N.
If you want to follow the rest of The Farmer’s Daughter, from the beginning, click HERE.
Alex cracked open a soda and leaned back against the porch railing of the old farmhouse, looking out over the recently harvested fields and breathing in deep the smell of freshly cut hay. He missed his normal beer, but alcohol had become too much of a crutch for him these last few years. He was doing his best to drink less beer and more water and soda.
He rubbed his hand across the stubble on his chin and jawline, pondering if he should shave it off before he headed back to the barn after lunch. He’d been clean shaven when he first arrived at the Tanner’s farm, five years ago. He couldn’t even believe that next week would make it five years exactly. So much had changed for him since that day.
“Hey, Dad, this is Alex. He needs a job,” Jason had said a few moments after they had walked in the Tanner’s farmhouse, two years after their college graduation. He was grinning while Alex’s face flushed red with embarrassment. He felt like a loser whose friend had to find a job for him because he was too inept to find one himself.
Robert, sitting at the kitchen table, peered around the newspaper he was reading and looked Alex up and down, a somber look on his face.
“Know anything about farming?” he asked.
“No, sir,” Alex said honestly, shoving his hands down in his jean pockets nervously. “But I’m willing to learn.”
Robert laid the paper down, leaned back in his chair and frowned. He tapped his fingers on the table and then a smile slowly tilted his mouth upward.
“It’s a good thing Jason already mentioned you might be coming home with him. We need a hired hand to help around the farm. My wife’s parents’ home will be able to move into by the end of the week since they’re moving to a condo in town.”
Robert stood and reached his hand out toward Alex. Alex took it, shaking it firmly.
“Glad to have you on board,” Robert said.
In the next year, Alex worked hard, wanting to please the man he saw care for his family, day in and day out, rarely taking a break, on constant call with farm work, first with his father and brother and then when the elder Tanner passed away, his brother and son. He’d watched Robert try hard to help his fellow farmers, buying their land when they could no longer farm, offering them jobs on his farm or at the family’s farm store. He’d been there when Robert’s father had disappeared further into dementia, then passed away, and he’d watched the family’s farm store expand from selling organic meats and dairy, eggs and vegetables to now offering flowers, plants, and even farming and gardening equipment.
Over those years, Robert had become like a father to Alex, teaching him how to work hard, how to run a business, and more importantly, how to care for a family. So far, though, Alex wasn’t anywhere near starting a family, or ready to care for one on his own. There were days he wasn’t even sure this was what he wanted for his future – to work on a small family farm in the middle of nowhere.
But there were other days, when he looked back on a day filled with accomplishments, when he could sit back and smell the freshly harvested field, that he could imagine himself living his whole life growing food in the soil, caring for the cows that gave the nation its’ dairy, and helping a family support themselves through the work of their hands.
Annie had become the mother he’d never had in his own – caring, nurturing, and understanding. After six months of living in the home Annie had grown up in and working for her husband, he’d found himself sick with a cold and alternating between shivering and burning up as he cleaned out the stalls.
“Alex, you need to come inside and let me make you some tea and honey,” Annie said, standing in the barn doorway, dressed in brown overalls and a thick winter coat.
“I’m okay, Mrs. Tanner, but th – “
“Don’t argue, young man,” Annie said. “You’ll be no good to anyone if that junk gets into your lungs. Get on in here. Robert can do without you for a few hours. You’ll have some tea and lay down in the spare room. No use arguing.”
She turned quickly and began walking toward the house.
Robert stood up from where he’d been inspecting the underside of a cow and jerked his head toward his retreating wife.
“You’d better listen to her. When she gets something into her head, she won’t let it go. Besides, Henry is coming in at 10 and I know he can help us while you rest.”
Inside the house, Annie set a cup of steaming hot tea in front of him at the table.
“Try leaning over that and breathing it in. It will help your nose loosen up.”
Alex nodded and did as he was told.
“Did your mom do this to you when you were young? I bet she did. All my bossing around is probably making you feel like a little boy again.”
Alex stared at the steam swirling up toward him and thought about his mom, how she’d almost never been maternal, though he was sure she had loved him and his brother. When he and Sam were sick, she had sent them to their rooms and set toast and juice in front of them and turned on a cartoon. She never felt foreheads or took temperatures, but sometimes took them to the doctor if the illness hit them hard enough.
“My mom wasn’t really – uh- maternal,” he said with a shrug. “She loved me and Sam. She just didn’t know how to be . . . comforting, I guess you would say.”
Annie turned from the stove and looked at him with furrowed eyebrows. “I’m sorry to hear that. That must have been hard for you and your brother.”
Alex shrugged again. “In some ways. But we turned out okay. I always considered us lucky. We were well fed, had whatever we wanted, except the attention of our parents, of course. They didn’t beat us, so there’s that at least.”
Annie sighed and held her hand against Alex’s forehead.
“But a little love shown shouldn’t have been too much to ask. You’re burning up. I’ll get that spare room set up for you. I want you to sip that tea and then I’ll give you a dose of elderberry syrup and pull out the Vapo rub and put it by the bed. I’ll make chicken soup for lunch.”
Alex shook his head as she walked toward the stairs, amazed at her kindness, especially toward someone who wasn’t even a member of her family. It wasn’t long, though, that Alex began to feel like a member of the family. Jason had already been like another brother. Robert became his surrogate father, Annie his surrogate mother. Even Franny and Ned treated him like he was one of their own, or at least Ned did before he forgot who almost everyone was.
And then there was Molly.
Beautiful, sweet Molly.
He let out a deep breath, clutched at his hair and lowered his head into his hands, trying to shake the image of her shapely figure backlit by the setting sun, standing across from him in the barn. He remembered clearly the day he’d first noticed how beautiful she’d become, how grown up she was looking. It had been three years ago and they had been talking about their favorite music, where they saw themselves in ten years, and what the future held for small family farms, a topic Alex never imagined he’d be concerned with.
“I guess I figured I would be writing for a major magazine or newspaper by now,” Molly said, leaning back against a hay bale, sliding her arms behind her head. “Maybe that’s just not what God has planned for me or maybe I messed up his plans by not finishing my degree. I don’t know. Do you think we can mess up God’s plans?”
Alex felt uneasy but tried not to show it.
“Not sure,” he said casually, leaning on the rake handle. “I’ve never thought much about God, let alone if He, She, or They, has ever directed my path in life. If a higher power is up there, it would have been nicer if he’d directed my life in a few different directions over the years.”
The sunlight pouring in from the window high in the top of the barn hit Molly’s hair and highlighted her red-blond curls. Her skin was smooth, her eyes bright, her shirt pulled tightly against her full, shapely figure. His pulse quickened and he quickly looked away from the curve of her throat, knowing his gaze would keep slipping lower if he let it. He mentally scolded himself, feeling like a dirty old man until he remembered they were still both in their 20s at the time, him only four years older. It wasn’t as if he was old enough to be her father.
Molly looked over at him, moving her arms from behind her head and leaning on her elbow against the hay bale.
He saw compassion in her eyes as she spoke. “But, don’t you think that one of the greatest gifts God could have given us is our own free will? We make our own decisions and sometimes we make the wrong ones because we don’t listen to what God is telling us so maybe it isn’t that he didn’t direct our life but we didn’t follow his directions.”
Alex laughed and shook his head. “I’m not the one you want to have a deep theological discussion with.” He tapped his temple with his finger. “There’s nothing deep in here.”
Molly smiled and his stomach quivered in a way he’d never felt before. “I highly doubt that, Alex Stone. I have a feeling there’s a lot more to you than you let on.”
She tossed a handful of straw at him and skipped past him on the way to the house. He’d watched her walk away, his eyes lingering on her retreating figure before he took a deep breath and softly exhaled a curse word.
“Dang, Molly Tanner, how’d you get so beautiful?” he’d asked himself out loud, maybe a bit too loud. He’d looked around quickly to make sure Jason or Robert weren’t somewhere behind him.
For two years now he had tried to ignore the way she was starting to affect him – the pounding heart, the rush of excitement that rumbled through his veins when he heard her voice or saw her walking across the yard toward the barn.
Why couldn’t he just make a move on her already? He’d never felt afraid to tell, even show a girl how he’d felt – until he met Molly. Molly was different, but he couldn’t really explain how. Maybe it was because he’d developed a friendship with Molly before he’d started feeling a strong attraction to her. Before meeting Molly, he’d always acted on instinct, moving into a physical relationship even if he hadn’t spent time getting to know the woman.
He knew it wasn’t only a fear of rejection stopping him from telling Molly how he felt. He worried how Robert, Annie and Jason would react. Would they see him as someone who had taken advantage of their kindness simply to get close to their beautiful daughter and sister? He couldn’t imagine losing their respect and love, yet he also couldn’t imagine his future without telling Molly how he felt.
Rejection and fear of the reactions of others, including Molly’s, wasn’t Alex’s only concern, though. He’d had a fear of attempting longtime commitment for years, always afraid he’d end up like his parents – in a loveless marriage of convenience. What if he told Molly how he felt, only to pull away from her in fear, refusing to open himself up to her fully and hurting her in the process? Could he even open himself to her? He couldn’t deny he was afraid to try. He’d never been able to do open himself up with any other woman. When they’d tried to go deeper than surface level, he’d broken it off and walked away from them, ignoring their calls or visits.
At one point he’d even considered leaving the farm, going back to Maryland, looking for work in computers, so he didn’t have to face his feelings for Molly. His attraction to her had always been stronger than the fear, though, and he’d stayed on, happy simply to be near her.
Now, though, he wanted to be more than near her, more than simply a co-worker. He wanted to be her confidant and her to be his. And he wanted to hold her, to show her he felt a tenderness for her he’d never felt for anyone else. More than simply wanting a relationship with her, he somehow felt he needed it.
***
Mavis Porter was already busy giving orders in the church basement when Molly arrived with the Tanner’s contributions of chocolate and carrot cakes two days before the sale.
“We’ll need someone to man the purse and the shoe areas,” Mavis said, clipboard in hand, her blue-gray hair piled on her head in a tight bun, her face long and mouth pursed together.
“I’m available,” Dixie West said, though Molly noticed the reluctance in her voice.
Mavis scribbled on the clipboard.
“Dixie in purses and shoes,” she said, focused on the clipboard. “Perfect.” She spoke to Molly without even looking up.
“Molly, are those the cakes from you and your mom?”
Molly opened her mouth to answer.
“Good,” Mavis said before Molly could answer, her eyes still focused on the clipboard. “Put them over in the kitchen with the others. I have you down to watch the table from 8:30 to noon on Saturday. Will that do?”
Molly opened her mouth to answer.
“Good,” Mavis said, again before Molly could answer. “Make sure you’re on time this year, please.”
Mavis swung around and marched across the basement floor, never looking up from her precious clipboard.
Molly sighed and carried the box with the cakes to the kitchen. One day she was going to find a way to stand up to Mavis Porter, but today was apparently not that day.
“On bake sale duty again?” Maddie Simpson asked, unloading her own cakes onto the counter in the kitchen.
“Of course,” Molly said. “At least she only put me on for four hours this time, unlike last year when I had to sit there all day.”
“I’m on kids clothes again this year,” Maddie said with an eye roll. “I have the morning shift.”
Molly winced. “That might be worse than the baked goods table.”
“All those moms ripping apart the table, looking for the cutest clothes in the just the right sizes,” Maddie said, shaking her head. “And then the pushing and the shoving when two moms grab the same outfit. Last year I thought we were going to have to call Reggie to break them apart.”
Molly laughed, thinking of Chief Reggie Stanton pushing his way between two battling moms, his large belly a barrier between them. Reggie led a small police force of five police officers, including himself. The small town of Spencer was lucky not to have a high crime rate, but the Spencer Police Department was there to break up fist fights, respond to car accidents and fires, and answer the call if someone locked themselves out of their car or a cat got stuck up a tree.
The chief was there to oversee it all and sometimes he even managed to do something. It wasn’t unusual to see Reggie standing to one side shouting orders to one of his officers.
“That’s right, Sgt. McGee. Get him down and you can cuff him while I read him his rights.”
“Don’t be afraid to stand up to, ‘im, Billy. He’s not that much bigger than you.”
“If you keep running that mouth of yours, I’ll have Officer Wilson here take you outside and read you your rights, you understand?”
Reggie even managed to yell orders for the driver to stop when Officer John Vanfleet was dragged down Route 220 at 25 mph while trying to open the car door of a suspected drunk driver.
“Stop! If you don’t stop, I’ll have you up on charges of attempted murder!” he yelled, not even bothering to try to chase the car.
It took two other officers to jump into the passenger side window and rip the car into neutral, finally stopping it.
For all his moments of laziness, though, Reggie was still the glue that held the force together, always willing to go to bat for his officers at the borough council meeting, asking for better healthcare or raises or even new uniforms or equipment.
Alice Bouse walked into the kitchen and sat a box of pies on the counter.
“What duty did you get this year?” she asked Molly.
“Manning the bake sale, like every year,” Molly said
“She’s nothing if not predictable,” Alice said with a heavy sigh. “I’m stuck on the register for the first half of the morning. I hate that job. That’s where people try to haggle us down in our prices. Every year I have to remind people ‘this is for charity.’ It really gets old after a while.”
“We’re all old,” Helen Maynard said slinging her box onto the counter and pulling out bags of homemade cookies, already labeled for sale.
“No, I said, the price haggling gets old,” Alice said.
“That too,” Helen said.
Emily Fields, Pastor Joe’s wife entered the kitchen with a box of pies.
“Is this where I should put the baked goods?” she asked softly.
“This is the place,” Molly said with a smile and a lavish gesture toward the counter.
“So glad you are contributing, Mrs. Fields,” Helen said. “Your pies are fantastic. That blueberry one you made for the potluck supper for the graduates at church was outstanding.”
Emily’s straight auburn hair pushed back off her face with a dark blue head band, highlighted her pale skin and bright green eyes.
She laughed and her cheeks flushed red, making her skin even more iridescent. “Oh, thank you. Pies seem to be the only thing I can bake. I have the innate talent of ruining even boxed cakes and burning all cookies. And please call me Emily. Mrs. Fields makes me feel so old.”
“You’re definitely not old,” Maddie laughed. “You’re one of the youngest pastor’s wives we’ve had at this church since I first started attending as a child.”
Alice started stacking Emily’s pies next to hers. “But you know who is old? Millie Baker. Did you all hear about what she did?”
Molly and the others shook their head.
“Well, she thought she was hitting the brake in her car this morning outside the Dollar General but instead she hit the accelerator and drove right into the side of the building.”
“No!” Maddie said. “Is she okay?”
“Yep, but the store isn’t,” Helen said. “Lew Derry was behind the counter and Lanny Wheeler said it was the fastest he’d ever seen him move, considering he’s usually high on that weed he smokes.”
“My goodness,” Alice said, shaking her head. “Someone is going to have to tell Millie she can’t drive anymore. She’s not safe on the road. That Dollar Store could have been the playground and that brick wall could have been a child.”
Helen shook her head. “Well, I’m not telling her. She’ll probably hit me with that cane of hers. Make her daughter do it.”
Molly laughed. “I should have my Aunt Hannah do it. She’s the one who told my grandmother she shouldn’t be driving anymore when she drove into the back of that garbage truck.”
“How did she take it?” Maddie asked.
“Not well,” Molly said. “We caught her behind the wheel last week.”
“So maybe Hannah isn’t the best person to talk to Millie,” Alice laughed.
“It’s not Aunt Hannah’s fault. Grandma is terribly stubborn.”
Helen took a chocolate chip cookie out of one of her bags and bit into it.
“How’s your grandma been doing anyhow?” she asked. “Besides driving into the back of garbage trucks. Since your grandpa passed, I mean.”
Molly took out the last of her cakes and sighed. “She’s struggling, to be honest, but she wouldn’t want me to share that with anyone else so I probably shouldn’t be. . .”
Emily laid her hand against Molly’s arm. “We’ll be praying for her.”
“Thank you,” Molly said. “I’d appreciate that. Losing Grandpa was hard enough but now having to admit she doesn’t see as well as she used to — it’s just been hard on her.”
Joe huffed into the kitchen carrying a cardboard box filled to the top with pies.
“Are those more of Emily’s pies?” Alice asked.
“Sure are,” Joe said. “Best blueberry pie around.”
“Oh wow!” Maddie said. “You must have been baking for days! These look great. I am definitely going to be picking up one.”
Across the room Mavis gestured, showing Jeffrey Staples where to move the tables and chairs for the sale.
Pastor Joe glanced through the open window as he unloaded the pies. “So, I see Mavis’ organization skills come in handy for this rummage sale. What a blessing to have someone with that gift in our church.”
“I didn’t realize that being bossy was a God-given gift,” Maddie said with a snort.
Pastor Joe laughed. “Well, I think maybe it can be. Even if we don’t always see it that way. Those with that gift often keep us on track.”
Molly smiled as she helped the pastor stack the pies. “They also keep us closer to God while we pray for him to give us strength to deal with them.”
The other ladies laughed and nodded their heads in agreement while Pastor Joe just smiled and shook his head, deciding he would keep his comments to himself.
“What do you think you’ll do, Yeshua? Save a girl who is already dead?”
The men laughed.
“What a fool!”
“Who does he think he is?”
“Oh, don’t you remember? He is the son of God.”
More laughter.
“If you hadn’t stopped to talk to that unclean woman, maybe she’d still be alive.”
“Go, we don’t need you here! She’s gone!”
“Clear this house so only your family is here.”
Jairus woke with a start. His memories of that day lingered in his mind as the fog of sleep faded.
It had been two years since Josefa had been raised from the dead. There were some parts of the story he wondered if he had imagined, yet he heard the voices in his dreams each night, seconds before he drifted off to sleep. Josefa often told him the same happened to her.
She wasn’t sure if her memories were dreams or her dreams were memories. She often asked Jairus about the day and what he remembered.
Sometimes Jairus answered, other times he waved her away, told her to go outside and play with her friends, be a child, enjoy life. There was only so many times he could talk about it, still unsure of what had happened and what he should believe.
He thought about the day at the temple. The day the man had reached up, asked Yeshua to heal his hand. Jairus could feel the anger coming off the other synagogue leaders, rabbis, and teachers.
“He would not dare to try his antics on Shabbat,” Rabbi Avigdor whispered bitterly, his face was twisted in disgust.
When Yeshua had told the man to step forward a hush settled over the leaders in the temple. Yeshua turned and looked at each man, as if searching for just one there who might have compassion on the man.
“You know healing is forbidden on Shabbat,” one of the leaders said curtly, as if to answer his gaze.
“Is it lawful on Shabbat to do good or to do evil, to save a life or to kill?”
The leaders pulled their gaze from Yeshua’s and looked at the stone floor, their sandals, anywhere but at the man they had allowed to speak within their walls and now seemed to be challenging them. They fell silent, unwilling to answer him.
Jairus could only watch in surprise. He saw anger mixed with sadness flicker in Yeshua’ eyes before Yeshua turned away from the other leaders to face the man.
“Stretch out your hand,” Yeshua said firmly.
Jairus could tell it pained the man to reveal the withered hand as he lifted it toward Yeshua.
Yeshua laid his hand over the man’s and when he withdrew it, the marks that had been there were gone. A murmur of shock rippled throughout the crowd of men who had been watching.
“Blasphemy!” Avigdor spat, his body visibly trembling with anger.
“I refuse to stand here and watch this man mock our laws and our traditions. Levi, Micha, Moshe, come with me.”
Jairus pondered in amazement at the man flexing his fingers, staring at his hand in shock and wonder.
“My hand!” the man’s face was wet with tears. He took Yeshua’ hand and kissed it. “Thank you. Thank you.”
“Jairus!” Avigdor shouted for him from the doorway.
Jairus looked away from Yeshua and the man as Avigdor jerk his head toward the front steps.
He followed the rabbi into the bright sunlight and heat of the day.
“Jairus, tell me you don’t believe the blasphemy of this man?” Avigdor snapped at him.
Rabbi Levi didn’t wait for Jairus to answer. He was incredulous. “Must we again listen to another self-proclaimed messiah?”
“We will not. But too many people – they are already following him,” Avigdor said sharply. “We can not let his man lead our people out of the will of God.”
Levi shook his head and put his hand behind his back.
“But what can we do? How can we stop him?”
Jairus stood outside of the group, tugging at his beard.
“I think we should wait – see what else he says. He may stumble eventually,” he offered finally.
“Wait for what? For him to lead a revolt against us or even worse cause more issues with the Romans?” Avigdor growled. “Jairus, don’t be foolish –“
“Maybe he’s right,” Rabbi Micha took his turn to speak, holding his hand up as if to pause their racing thoughts. “The people will eventually see that this Yeshua isn’t who they think he is. They’ll eventually see he brings them empty promises. If we leave him alone he will eventually stumble and make a fool of himself.”
“He already speaks blasphemy. He already mocks our ways,” Avigdor snapped. “What more should we wait for?”
Rabbi Levi put his hand gently on Avigdor’s shoulder. “Shabbat is almost over. Let us try to calm ourselves and pray. We won’t help matters yelling and screaming when we are so fired up. We will return to this topic after Shabbat, when we’ve had time to clear our heads.”
Levi was often the voice of reason and the one who could calm Avigdor, but this was one time Jairus wasn’t sure it would work.
Avigdor shook his head, looked at the ground for a moment and then looked at Levi.
“You are right, Levi. I will bring this up again after Sabbath,” he said, still with an edge to his voice, but now calmer than before. “But I can not promise you my opinion will not be the same.”
Jairus followed behind the men then paused and looked back at the door of the synagogue. Yeshua and the man he had healed were walking through the doorway.
“Rabbi, how can I ever thank you?” the man was asking, tears streaking his cheeks.
Yeshua stopped walking and turned toward the man.
“Honor your God each day. Have no other gods before him. Love others as you love yourself.”
The man kissed Yeshua’ hand, which was clasped in his own.
“I will do my best,” he told Yeshua.
“That is all God asks of you,” Yeshua said softly, a smile tilting his mouth upward.
He turned and as his followers came around him they all walked together into the crowd, which swallowed Yeshua from Jairus’ view.
“Josefa! Can you come to the stream to play?”
Her friend Caleb peered at her through the curtain of her sleeping quarters window.
She rubbed the sleep from her eyes.
“After chores, yes.”
The sun was high the sky when Josefa finally took off her sandals and placed her feet in the stream near the olive trees. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the cool water against her skin.
Caleb leaned close to her and whispered in her ear. “I heard another story about demons and Yeshua’ followers.”
“Caleb. Stop that. There is no such thing as demons.”
“There totally is! They said Yeshua’ follower named Matthew spoke to the man and said there was a demon in him. The man who told me said the man with the demon spoke funny and fell to the ground.”
“Like this!” Caleb fell on the ground and his face twisted up while he jerked around with his arms against his chest, flailing back and forth.
He jumped up and stuck his tongue out at Josefa and shook his head back and forth vigorously
Josefa put her hands up as if to push Caleb away from her as he continued to distort his face, bursting into laughter.
“Then the man yelled back at Matthew and told him he lived there now and he wasn’t leaving, but Matthew said ‘You have no place here, demon and in the name of the most high God I command you to leave.’”
Caleb pointed at an imaginary man and made a stern face to imitate Matthew.
“In the name of the —” He stepped closer to Josefa as he continued to point. He lifted his chin and looked sternly at her down his nose. “The most high Gawd! Be goooone!”
Josefa put her hand over her mouth and giggled until the sound of footsteps startled them both.
Caleb’s older brother, Enoch, scowled down at them.
“Who do these men think they are?” he snapped. Acting as if they have authority to mess with the possessed?”
Enoch knelt next to the stream to fill his wineskin, shaking his head.
“No one asked you, Enoch,” Caleb said, rolling his eyes.
Enock snorted. “These are the words of children. Stories. That’s all they are. Only a baby like you would believe them.”
Caleb stood, hands clenched into fists. “That’s not true! I heard them talking about it in the market. That man named Matthew called a demon out.”
Caleb made a weird face again and staggered toward Enoch. “’I am a servant of the devil!’ That’s what the man said.”
Enoch stepped away from his brother, turned his back to him and tied his bag closed.
“And, besides, Yeshua raised Josefa from the dead!” Caleb’s voice was loud and defiant.
Josefa’s cheeks flushed red.
“Caleb . . .”
“What?” Caleb said. “He did! You should tell more people! They should know the truth about Yeshua and his followers and who they really are.”
“You speak foolishness, Caleb,” Enoch said.
Enoch turned toward Josefa and she caught his gaze, his deep green eyes watching her. The palms of her hands were warm, moist and her heart pounded hard and fast in her chest.
Enoch smirked and stepped toward her. “Is this true, Josefa? Is it true what people are saying? Tell me, Josefa, daughter of Jairus, what did Yeshua really do?”
Her heart pounding in her ears almost drowned out his mocking words.
She kept her eyes down, looking at the olive branch in her hand. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why? Because it’s a lie, right? What your family said happened is a lie isn’t it?”
Josefa turned to look at Enoch, her face warm.
“He asked us not to speak of it —”
Enoch laughed. “Of course, he did.” His smile faded, he stepped toward her and towered above her. “Because nothing happened.”
Caleb was furious. “They were already holding a time of mourning for her, Enoch! You don’t know! You were out with the sheep. But it’s true! I was there! I was crying!”
Enoch shook his head and tied his wine skin to his belt and reached for his staff.
“She was probably just asleep. You cry over everything. You’re still a boy.”
“She wasn’t breathing. I saw her! I touched her!”
Josefa looked at Caleb. She hadn’t known he’d been with her.
“You were there?” she asked softly.
Caleb’s cheeks were red now.
“Yes. I came because I did not want to believe it. I didn’t want to believe you were gone. I was there when Yeshua came with those men and then he told us all to leave.”
Enoch’s haughty laugh interrupted their exchange.
“Of course, Yeshua wanted everyone to leave. So, he could pretend Josefa was really dead.” He ruffled Caleb’s hair, but Caleb slapped his hand way. “Okay, little one, I’m leaving you and your friend to your childish tales. Take care of mama while Joseph and I are gone to find the lost sheep.”
He paused and looked at Josefa, half turned away from her.
“Take care, Josefa. I don’t believe you were truly dead, but I am glad you are still alive.”
“Thank you, Enoch.”
Her voice softened to a whisper. “But I was dead.”
The sound of a passing cart drowned out her voice.
Enoch walked around the children and called out to his older brother.
“Joseph wait for me!”
“Why didn’t you tell him?” Caleb asked as Enoch and Joseph disappeared down the road.
“I don’t know. Yeshua said to tell no one. I wasn’t sure —”
“But so many already know, Josefa. They know the truth about what happened to you. If it was me, I wouldn’t be ashamed. I’d be excited to let everyone know that I had been dead but now was alive.”
Josefa flicked at the water with her fingers and stared at the pools rolling into each other.
I can’t think when someone else is thinking for me.
None of us can and that’s what social media companies are banking on.
I once heard a pastor say it’s hard to hear God when we are filling our mind with so much garbage from the world. It’s similar for creativity. How can we hear our own voice when we are listening to so many others?
Social media is addicting.
It’s hard to get away from. ‘
Trust me, I know. Once you start scrolling it’s as if your brain slips into some sort of lock down, slow down mode. While your brain was once hopping with all kinds of ideas for stories or projects or plans, it’s now slowly grinding through the thoughts and ideas of other people and before long your own thoughts and ideas and plans are being strangled and pulled down. Your brain becomes muddled with all the information floating around in there and you can’t remember what plans you had or story you were going to write or what project you were going to complete.
“I’ll hop on for a few moments” you thought and then you realize two hours have passed and you’ve accomplished nothing. Not only that but then you spend the rest of the day sneaking peeks at the site or app you were on because you can’t stand not knowing what someone said back to you or about you or what they are doing.
Social media feeds off our natural tendency as humans to want to feel apart of something and not feel left out. They know what they are doing, in other words. The more addicted they can get you to that fear of missing out the more they can pull you in to view their ads, their propaganda, their view of the world. We are all slowly being brainwashed and sadly many of us like it.
We like being told how to think and what to believe and that our government and corporate officials want to take care of us. It’s soothing and calming to think others are taking care of us and have our best interest at heart. What a rude awakening when one day we realize they only want to manipulate us into one way of thinking and living by telling us some fact checker deemed our views as “incorrect and wrong.”
George Orwell wrote in his book 1984 (which I think should be required reading for all ages in this day and age):
Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.
If social media can dismantle your beliefs and tell you what you believe, they can control you so you’ll buy the products of their advertisers and maybe even vote for the people they allow to advertise there. Scary to think about it, isn’t it?
But also scary is that social media can also steal your creativity and leave you hollow and confused inside.
What’s the answer?
The answer is for each of us to decide, but for me my answer is to push social media aside as much as I can so I can hear my own beliefs, my own thoughts and my own creativity.
I see Zooma the Wonder Dog found her way onto my blog again yesterday.
Because so many of you seemed to like her post, I thought I would link to some of her past posts for any of you who are terribly bored and need some lighthearted entertainment and photos of Zooma when she was a very tiny, cute puppy.
I can’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve been able to take over the blog. A lot has happened since then (like two years ago!) and I’ve been so busy I haven’t been able to sneak over to the laptop and take it over again before Mom sees!
In case some of you don’t know who I am, I’m Zooma the Wonder Dog. I’m really just Zooma, but Mom added “The Wonder Dog” because when I run my tail and fur streams out behind me like a cape of some sort. I was born on a farm with cows and other puppies and was adopted by Mom and Dad, Little One and The Boy two years ago (or so). I also got to know The Beast, as I call her, and she loves me, even though she sometimes pretends she doesn’t.
I love life, especially when I can be outside with my boy or girl or following Mom or Dad (or Grandpa) around to see what they’re doing. I’m always very helpful, even though sometimes they tell me I’m in the way or not being very helpful because I roll on my back and wait for them to pet me when they are trying to do something they call “work.” I don’t know why they would want to do “work”. It sounds boring and awful. Rubbing my belly and exploring nature with me sounds like a lot more fun.
Not long ago our family moved from our house to live with Grandpa and Grandma. I liked living there. I followed Grandpa everywhere and slept with him at night. I’m not sure he liked taking me out so I could pee in the mornings but I had fun with him anyhow. I smile more there than anywhere else.
Then we moved to what Mom and Dad said is our new house. I like our new house because there are lots of birds for me to chase in the backyard and new people for me to bark at. I don’t know why those birds keep running away from me when I try to talk to them but since they do, I just chase them. I think they like our game. I play the same game with the little human and the little bit bigger human.
I also bark at the neighbors when I think they are in our yard because it’s hard to tell where our yard is at this new place so I figure I better bark at everyone just to be safe. We don’t have a fence here so I’m never sure. Mom says to stop the whole barking thing because the new neighbors will think I’m so vicious creature instead of the sweetheart I am.
The other day a lady came into the part of the yard that I know is our yard to talk to Mom and Dad and I barked and barked at her but her voice was sweet so I rolled on my back and let her pet my belly. Humans seem to like when I let them pet my belly so I tried it again on the other lady on the other side of our yard. She liked rubbing my belly too.
I still don’t trust those male humans who come into the yard though. Their voices are deep and scary so I don’t let them pet my belly, even if it would make them less scary. I tell them to go away and let the women pet me instead.
My biggest job, besides alerting my humans to any movement (like people, birds, other dogs, cats, animals, leaves or wind) in the yard or anywhere outside by barking, is keeping The Beast out of trouble.
The Beast likes to run outside when I go outside for my “pee sessions” (as Mom sometimes calls my potty breaks) but I’m a good girl and stay out of trouble (especially when Mom and Dad hook me up on that thing they call a lead. I don’t get why it’s called a lead. It doesn’t lead me anywhere. It actually keeps me from going very far and being able to explore the way I want to and that’s not cool.) but The Beast is always wandering where she isn’t supposed to be. Sometimes I let Mom and Dad know she’s getting into trouble by barking loudly and sometimes I just take the matter into my own paws and gently usher her back inside by chasing her while she yowls and slaps at me. She loves me, though, I know she does.
I met another cat when Mom and I went on a walk when we first moved to this town but Mom wouldn’t let me get to know him. I’m pretty sure he would have liked me as much as The Beast does if I had been able to talk to him more.
Well, that’s it for this time around. All this sneaking around has wiped me out and it’s time for my nap – in Mom’s favorite chair, where I look too adorable for her to kick me out so I always get to take my nap there. Hopefully Mom will wander off somewhere again soon and I can share another update with you. I bet my updates are much more interesting than her’s anyhow.
Not only did our county in Pennsylvania open up this week but the weather warmed up and people in town seemed to pour from their homes to work in their yards, take walks and go to the stores. My family was outside more than inside most of the days of the week, which was nice, but then I forgot that I hadn’t purchased sunblock yet and ended up with a sunburned face and chest. I was so red I looked like I had painted my chest area bright maroon. I’m more sensitive to the sun thanks to the thyroid medicine I’m on.
My daughter wanted to be outside every day, which is a little different than how it was where we lived before. There is a lot more space in our backyard here. The yard there was fenced in and butted up against the neighbor’s and there was a lot more traffic. At the other house the children couldn’t go out when the school down the street let out because the kids who walked by our house were rude, obnoxious and cursed at my children. I don’t know what happened in the last year or so but the kids from the school had become more aggressive and rude. One day the members of the high school track team ran by and broke a limb off of our tree and just kept going. Another day a kid tried to pull our for sale sign out of the ground and I don’t think it was because they didn’t want us to leave. Then another day a teenager football punted one of the solar lights we had along our front sidewalk for decoration.
So far, this neighborhood is quieter, with less traffic and no obnoxious teenagers or children. Anytime our children go outside, the dog and cat think they have to go out too. That happened at both houses but it’s even more prominent here.
Our cat, Pixel, has become an escape artist, always slipping out the door to go explore. We worried about her getting hit by a car at the old house and sometimes I worry about that happening here too (cars fly off the one back road and up onto our street on their way to the local Agway), but I’m more concerned she’s going to be eaten by a bear. I don’t think she’ll be eaten by one in the middle of the day, really, and we keep her locked up inside at night. One day last week I went outside to bring the dog back in and I found Pixel on the roof of the garage. She climbed back down via the roof over the wood pile because I think she realized how high up she was. Luckily if she had gotten stuck my son could have climbed up to get her because the roof of the woodpile slopes up from the bank and leads to the garage roof.
I can’t lie and say having her slip out isn’t frustrating because I don’t like to have to keep going outside to check on her. She’s an extremely high maintenance cat some days. She constantly wants me to turn the water on in the bathroom sink for her so she can drink out of it (she’s done this everywhere we’ve stayed or lived in the last few months, including my parents.), she yowls all night if she can’t get to her food (which we have to keep up on the counter so the dog can’t get into it), she yowls all night if she wants water from the faucet or to go outside, and she claws at my feet in the middle of the night if she feels playful and I try to stretch out.
Every once in awhile I think it would be okay if she disappeared so I don’t have to deal with worrying about her, or her antics, but then she brushes up against me for attention. or talks to me when she comes back in the house,and I feel guilty for those thoughts.
Every cat we have had has had an interesting personality and she’s no different. My husband hung up a little decorative sign the other day that features the painting of a cat and says: “cats are like potato chips, you can’t have just one.” That was once true for us since we had three cats at one time and then two, but this cat is like having two cats already so I let him know we won’t be getting another cat to try to prove the saying on the sign right.
On Thursday and Friday my dad and son built boxes for me to build raised garden beds. I had mentioned the possibility to my dad but didn’t know if it would really come together and before I knew it, dad was offering to go get the lumber, brought it back to our house, started to treat it (with linseed oil and then vegetable oil.) then a day later built them with my son’s help. I had planned to buy one of those ready to put together boxes from Lowe’s instead.
I’m not really sure what we are planting in them yet, but we have some time because we still have to haul some potting soil in. I’m sure we will have to buy already partially grown plants because it is getting so late in the season, but it’s been very cold here so we haven’t been able to plant anything even if I had wanted to.
Being outside so much this past week left little time for reading, except for some at night but I was so tired from the day’s activities I ended up not getting very far in my book (Sweet on You by Becky Wade) and kept falling asleep. I have a couple of other books I want to start this next week, including Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes by Kenneth E. Bailey.
This is a non-fiction book and I rarely read non-fiction but it intrigues me because I think it will help me understand the history of the Bible and Jesus more. I enjoy books, movies, and shows that help bring me into a more visceral understanding of my faith. I think this book, coupled with The Chosen show, and writing Fully Alive is helping me do that.
I did have a little time to watch a new show on Britbox (through Amazon) called The Mallorca Files. The show was produced exclusively for Britbox and the main character are an uptight British detective and a goofy German detective who are thrown together on a police force on an island in Spain. The story lines are fairly simple, the mysteries are easy to solve, and the subject matter is fairly clean so it isn’t a hard hitting mystery show by any means, but I think light, humorous and slightly quirky are exactly what I need right now. (And the lead actor is good looking, so, you know..that helps.)
We are still adjusting to the new house and new town, though it is made easier that I grew up ten minutes from here and visited this small town a lot as a child and teenager.
I plan to write a blog post later this week about how small town life differs from “bigger” town life (we went from a town of about 3,000, with a few thousand more in the adjoining towns, to a town of 600) but for now I’ll list a few things that I’m relearning about living in a more rural setting.
Birds are loud. Very loud. Birds also like to talk at all hours of the day, including 4-stinking-a.m. What does a bird have to talk about at 4 a.m.? Seriously. The sun isn’t even up yet. Shut up, bird. (The same bird kept chirping away all day the next day too.). Birds existed in the town we lived in but they must have known to shut up at 4 a.m. because I don’t remember hearing them as often.
Deer like to eat anything and everything, including the shrubs at the edge of our property that we only found out this week were ours. Oops. We probably should have looked at our deed a little closer when we bid on the place.
A house in a more country setting means more encounters with Lyme carrying ticks. That means investing in a lot of bug spray and hosing the kids and myself down every time we go in the yard. It also increases my anxiety since my dad has suffered with Lyme for a few years now and I don’t want that to happen to my kids, husband or me.
There will be regular sightings of a variety of animals – from rabbits to turkeys, Canadian geese and their babies, the six deer that visited the neighbors last week, the cats the neighbors just let roam the street (which is fitting since my cat is now doing the same thing, I guess.) and the neighbor says there have been bears in town, but I’m thankful we haven’t seen one yet.
I have to be sure to take my allergy medicine, especially in spring, because there always seems to be more than one tree or plant blooming at this time here in the more rural small town we live in.
How about all of you? What have you been reading, watching or doing this past week? Let me know in the comments or share a post with me that lets me know!
Catch up on Molly’s story HERE. As always, this is a story in progress and there very well could be some typos, plot holes and errors.
An update on A New Beginning that I put up on Kindle this week. I have temporarily removed it to fix some errors and issues and hope to have it back up for sale on Monday. A Story to Tell, the first story about Blanche is currently available on Kindle Unlimited (free for members of Kindle Unlimited on Amazon) and will be on sale for $.99 next week for those who don’t have Kindle Unlimited.
“Hey, Molly, guess who I saw in town this morning.”
“No idea.”
“Ben Oliver.”
Molly’s muscles tensed at the name.
It was a name she didn’t like hearing and had hoped she’d never hear again.
She kneeled next to Daisy the cow and prepped her for a milking session. “Oh yeah? Where did you see him?”
“At the gym.”
“Ah. I see.”
Molly hoped Jason would drop the subject. She didn’t want to think about Ben, let alone talk about him, especially in front of Alex.
“Who’s Ben Oliver?” Alex asked, preparing another cow in the stall across from her.
Molly inwardly groaned. Shut up, Alex.
“Molly’s old boyfriend.”
Shut up, Jason.
Alex’s head popped up over the back of a cow. “Boyfriend? Oh yeah?” He grinned. “Do share.”
Jason leaned against a beam, arms folded across his chest, grinning.
“Yep. They were pretty hot and heavy before he left for college in Boston or somewhere.”
Molly’s heart pounded faster. She was furious at Jason for teasing her about Ben, but how would Jason know how much Ben had hurt her the night he’d broke it off with her? Molly had a feeling if he had known not only would he not have been teasing her, but he probably would have punched Ben in the face.
She didn’t know if she would call anything about her and Ben’s relationship ‘hot and heavy.’ They’d only dated a couple of years as two young, inexperienced high school students. He’d been her first major crush, her first kiss and then her first heartbreak.
They’d broken things off when Ben had left for college. Actually, no. Ben had broken things off but if he hadn’t, Molly would have. Especially after what he’d said to his friends when he thought she wasn’t listening.
“He’s a lawyer now,” Jason told Alex. “I don’t know why he’s back here. He can’t be thinking of opening a law office here. There’s definitely less money here than in a big city.”
Alex shrugged. “You never know. There’s probably more legal possibilities in a small town like this than most of us realize. Real estate transactions, divorces, custody battles —”
“Maybe he can represent all those drunk drivers we read about in the Spencer Chronicle,” Jason said with a snort.
Jason stepped away from the beam and reached for a pitchfork. “I still say he’d make more money in a bigger city.”
Alex adjusted the milking machine on one of the cows. “Who knows, though. Maybe he didn’t come back for money.”
He looked at Molly and winked. She saw the wink out of the corner of her eye and ignored it. “Maybe he came back so he can win Molly back.”
Jason shoved the pitchfork into a pile of hay, lifted it and tossed some inside one of the cow’s stalls.
“Hear that, Molly?” he asked. “Maybe you’ll be the wife of a rich lawyer one day.”
Molly inwardly cringed. She finished hooking up the last of the cows and walked back toward the feed room. “Hey, Alex, keep an eye on the girls. I’m going to get some feed. I’ll be back.”
Alex sipped from a bottle of water as Molly walked past him, noticing the tension in her face. He tried to read the expression, wondering if it was anger, longing, or something else. He vaguely remembered hearing about this Ben guy before. That had been a couple of years ago. From what he’d gathered, Ben had been a high school boyfriend of Molly’s, but their relationship hadn’t been serious. Now he wondered what had happened between the two to make Molly so uncomfortable at the mention of his name.
“So, were they serious?” Alex asked when Molly was out of earshot as he grabbed another rag to wipe the next cow’s udder.
Jason tossed more hay into the stalls. “Who?”
Alex looked over the top of the cow. “What do you mean who? Molly and this Ben guy.”
Jason shrugged and stooped to lift another pitchfork full of hay. “Yeah. I think so. For a while anyhow. I can’t really remember why they stopped dating. I guess because Ben went so far away for college. I always felt bad they broke up. I thought they were a good fit, you know?”
Alex’s eyes narrowed as he looked toward the back of the barn. “Yeah. Uh-huh. I guess.”
He wondered how Molly and this Ben were a good fit. What made anyone a good fit anyhow? If they liked the same things, maybe. Had the same interests. Shared the same faith.
Did Ben and Molly share the same faith? Did Molly miss Ben and if she did then why had her expression been so vague and not more joyful at the mention of his name?
He mentally scolded himself for all the questions he was asking himself. He’d never asked so many questions in his life. Alex Stone, what are you doing right now? This is none of your business. You have no claim on Molly because you can’t even tell Molly how you feel about her, you coward.
Alex finished hooking up the cows in his row to the milking machine and stretched his arms out to the side, yawning.
“Out late again last night?” Jason asked. “I didn’t see you when I got back from Ellie’s.”
“Actually, no. I couldn’t sleep. Took a drive, sat and looked at the moon for a while and came home.”
Alex wasn’t about to tell Jason he’d sat and looked at the moon and thought about Molly part of that time. He’d also thought about his past, stupid decisions he’d made over the years, what his future might hold, and wondered what his dad was up to since he barely heard from him anymore.
He unhooked the machine from the first cow in his row, changing the topic. “So, when are you going to ask Ellie to marry you anyhow?
Jason rolled his eyes. “You sound like my mom.”
“Well?”
“I don’t know. I like how it is now. Things are good.”
“Yeah, but don’t you Christians believe in waiting until marriage?”
Jason looked at Alex and laughed. “Not all of our lives revolve around that, dude.”
Alex grinned. “Yeah, but still. Don’t you want to —”
“Hey,” Jason said, holding his hand up toward Alex. “I’m not talking about this with you.”
“Maybe that’s why you’re so uptight sometimes. Maybe you would be less stressed if you and Ellie —”
Jason gently shoved Alex in the arm. “I said I’m not talking about that with you, got it?” He smiled and propped the pitchfork against a wall. “Seriously, though, I have considered proposing to Ellie. And not just for that reason. I really . . .”
Alex wanted to laugh at the red flushing along Jason’s cheeks but with Jason being twice his size he was afraid of ending up with a broken nose.
“I can see myself growing old with her.” Jason finished his sentence after he cleared his throat and looked away, clearly embarrassed by the tenderness he’d just revealed.
Alex patted him on the shoulder. “Then you’re going to have to pull that trigger soon, buddy. Ellie’s not going to wait forever, you know.”
Jason unhooked some more of the cows. “What about you?”
Alex frowned. “What about me?”
“You think you’ll ever settle down?”
Now it was Alex’s turn to flush red. He turned his face quickly away from his friend, bending down to unhook the milking equipment from Daisy, his favorite Jersey. “Eh, who knows. Not something I think about too much.”
Alex wasn’t lying. He really hadn’t thought about settling down. Not in the same way Jason was thinking about it anyhow. What Alex had been thinking about lately was how much he’d fallen in love with farming, with waking up each morning knowing he would be doing something that mattered; something that would provide food for families across the country. He rubbed Daisy’s ears and let her nuzzle his hand.
He’d fallen in love with the smell of fresh cut hay, of cows mooing in the distance, with barn cats, and even with the sweet smell of manure when it was spread in the spring.
As for finding a woman to marry, Alex wasn’t sure yet. He’d never thought about himself married but if he did ever marry he knew he wanted to marry someone just like Molly Tanner, the girl who wasn’t afraid to compete with him in a burping competition or make a hilarious fart joke like one of the guys. Molly was real and if he ever did marry that was what he wanted in a wife – authenticity, kindness and devotion. He had a good feeling he would find all those things in Molly because he already saw them in her.
He chuckled softly. What was he doing even thinking about Molly and marriage in the same vein? Alex Stone and marriage were two things that didn’t go together.
“What’s so funny?” Jason asked.
“Nothing,” Alex said quickly. “Nothing at all.”
***
Molly slammed the lever to the feed machine up hard and kicked a metal bucket across the barn floor. Why did Jason have to bring up Ben anyhow?
She still remembered well the night Ben broke up with her. They’d gone to the movies, had lunch at a café in town and he had driven her home and walked her to her front porch. She’d expected a kiss before he headed home to finish packing for college, but instead he’d motioned toward the porch swing.
“Hey, Mols, can I talk to you for a minute?”
There was a cool breeze blowing, golden sunlight was pouring across the fields, and a heifer mooed softly in the barn. One of the barn cats rubbed against her shin and she reached down and stroked its head and back.
“Sure.”
They sat next to each other, but Molly noticed Ben sat back slightly away from her, instead of pulling her close like he usually did. When he sighed, turning toward her, taking her hands in his, she knew something was wrong.
“This isn’t an easy thing for me to talk to you about, Mols,” he said softly. “But I’m — I mean, it’s just. . .”
He paused, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The rest of what he had to say came out quickly and abruptly.
“You know I’ve been working a lot with Angie at the ice cream shop on the weekends?”
Of course, she knew he’d been working with Angie. Angie Phillippi. Skinny. Blond. Long legs. Perfect. All the things Molly wasn’t.
She was starting to feel uneasy. “Yeah?”
“Yeah, so, yeah. We — Angie and I — we’ve grown close this summer and, the thing is, I think we’ve fallen for each other.”
“Oh.”
Molly swallowed hard, a heavy lump forming in the center of her chest.
“Molly you know how much I care about you, but,” Ben shifted nervously on the swing. “I feel different when I am with Angie. I feel — I don’t know. I feel like she really gets me. We’re into the same things. We laugh at each other’s jokes. . .”
I laugh at your jokes, Molly thought.
“She’s . . . I don’t know. She’s someone I can’t imagine not being in my life and it’s not fair to you to keep stringing you along when I know I want to be with Angie.”
I can’t imagine you not being in my life, Molly thought.
Molly nodded slowly, pulling her hands from Ben’s grip. “Oh.”
She wished she could say more than “Oh,” but she seemed to be at a loss for words.
“I’m sorry, Molly. I really am.”
Molly forced a smile.
“It’s okay,” she finally managed to say, pushing the buzzing feeling in her chest – the one that signaled her emotions were about to override her brain – deep down because she was not, no, she was not going to cry in front of Ben Oliver, her first ever crush and boyfriend. “You can’t help how you feel.”
Her voice sounded far away, like someone else’s. What was she even saying? She didn’t believe any of the words flying out of her mouth, but she had to say them to hurry this conservation along, to end it quickly before she sobbed in Ben’s face and made a fool of herself.
Ben sat back slightly, his shoulders relaxing. “I am so relieved you understand. I never wanted to hurt you. I just knew I had to be honest with you, though, and with myself.”
He leaned forward and took her hands in his again. His dark brown eyes focused on hers. “I will always remember our time together, okay? And you’ll always be special to me.”
Molly suddenly felt like a first grader being talked to by their teacher.
“If I’m so special, then why are you breaking up with me?” she wanted to ask, but she didn’t, because she didn’t really want to hear the reason again.
Instead, she told him that she was okay, that she was happy for him, that this was for the best. She was glad he had told her now, instead of waiting until after he left for college, she assured him.
Of course, they’d still be friends.
Of course, she’d write him at college.
Of course, she’d always remember the good times.
Yes. Good luck at college.
She reassured him again she’d be fine and then he’d left with a gentle, brief kiss on her cheek. After he’d left, and she walked into the house, she answered her parents concerned expressions by telling them she and Ben were taking a break while he went to college and that was fine with her. Then she lied again, telling them she was relieved because she had felt herself drifting away from Ben for a few months now. He’d be away at college, going to law school, and she’d be at the community college, pursuing a degree in English, or writing, or something similar. There hadn’t been a future for them anyhow, right?
She hadn’t told Jason because he’d been away at college, hanging out with Alex and earning a degree he’d use when he came back to the farm.
Her parents had said they understood, asked if she was going to be okay, and each gave her hugs.
“Yep. I’m good.”
She had smiled broadly and walked up the stairs to her room. Behind the closed door she blasted Garth Brooks from her stereo, sat at on her bed, laid there on her side for a few moments starring at the blank wall of her bedroom and then cried until her throat and chest burned.
As if Ben’s breaking up with her to date Angie hadn’t been enough, Molly was in the convenience store a week later when she heard Ben’s voice from another aisle.
“Yeah, I know it is weird,” he was saying. “But it was time. Molly’s a nice girl, but Angie. Dang. Angie. She’s hot. She’s got legs that go for miles. And she’s so slender she just fits against me perfectly, you know?”
One of Ben’s friends laughed a laugh Molly could only think to describe as a dirty laugh. “Fits against you? Dude, how far have things gone with Angie?”
Ben joined the laughter. “That’s personal, man. All I can say is she has way more experience than Molly Tanner ever did or ever will.”
Molly’s sob had caught in her throat as she sat the soda and chips she’d been holding onto the counter and darted outside. Tears streaked her face all the way back to the farm, her hands tightly gripping the steering wheel of her grandfather’s old pickup. At church the pastor always acted like God cared more about what a person looked like inside, but Molly knew that wasn’t what Ben cared about. Somehow, it seemed to matter more at that moment what Ben cared about.
As she drove, she vowed to never again let herself fall for someone like she had fallen for Ben. She’d never let those walls down again, let any man see the deepest parts of her. She was going to keep her distance from men from now on, keep herself from feeling the pain she felt now.
She vowed that one day she’d lose weight and make Ben Oliver regret he’d walked away from her all those years ago. Watching the feed fill the wheelbarrow, Molly felt self-focused anger rage through her. Ben wasn’t going to regret he’d left her if he saw her now. She’d never lost that weight and had maybe gained more. What she hadn’t gained was more experience at whatever she should have had experience at, at whatever experience Angie had had. She was still the same, fat Molly and there was no way Ben would ever regret he had broken up with her
When Harry passed away the new post commander, Dan Polinski, told the local paper about the countless times Harry and others of Harry’s generation had stood in all kinds of weather to honor veterans who had passed away. Dan remembered one specific day where the rain was coming down, cold and stinging, against their faces.
We keep Harry’s hats sealed inside the clear plastic case he handed them to Jonathan in and we keep them in an honored spot next to a sealed American flag given to Warren’s family after his great-grandfather passed away. And when we do pull the hats out we not only remember the man who stood at every Memorial and Veterans day service, no matter the weather, in full uniform, honoring those who served and those who fell, but the man who came home from war, worked with troubled youth with his wife for a decade, worked hard at every job he did, and also showed us how to persevere during the toughest times in life.
