Yesterday....

Here is the house that DH grew up in, a typical farm house about one hundred years old. The picture was taken in better days. Now the shutters are gone, the paint peels, thanks to a recent storm the roof shingles on the south side are missing, and the blue front door is no longer such a vibrant hue. The trees still linger and are greening up right now as spring stretches over the Kansas prairie.

My in-laws are in assisted living and have accepted that after two years they will not be able to return to this home. Over six decades of living must be dismantled, divided, sold, or burned. It is a big job, made larger by the fact that my mother-in-law was an artist alongside of being a farm wife. Along with canning jars, cooking pots, quilted blankets, and a lifetime of notebooks and pictures are canvases, sketch books, frames, drawings and paintings.

She was an everywoman who struggled to rear her children, feed her family, make ends meet on a Kansas farm that fought her daily with wind, drought, or too much rain at the wrong times ruining crops and undermining her livelihood. Yet she struggled and fought the land back to do more than merely survive; she wanted to see her creative side of writing and painting flourish just as she wanted to cultivate wheat, corn, and a truck garden.

Her children grew up on the farm, influenced by both parent and land, but so did I in a sense. I was a mere 16 years old when I first appeared at the farm. I was not what she wanted to see the only son bring home, but to be fair, any outsider is often just that, an outsider to family and clan. But like the Osage orange in the hedge rows, I sank my roots deep and stayed. Now when DH needs me, I am there for him and my in-laws to help. The dismantling of this farm household hurts me too.

I found so many small things that I gave my mother-in-law like journals, letter openers, candle holders, a purse, a scarf, even a quote from my favorite book that I typed out for her 25 years ago. I took down the colored glass that sat in her windows for years filtering in sunlight through greens, ambers, and her all-time favorite cobalt blue. When the window sills stood empty, it was like the room had darkened. I boxed up the Gladys Taber books that I had bought her; we both loved the Taber books, rereading them in the winter and then discussing the old scenes over the phone. As I boxed up things for an auction, I shuddered thinking of people pawing through her things.

When the dirt and dust and memories became too much, I stepped out on the deck for a minute. The day was balmy and warm, and the trees out near the chicken house fluttered their faintly pink and white spring flowers. The hyacinths and jonquils she had patiently set deep into the earth were up like flags to greet the season….soon redbud would burst forth. I remembered when a mimosa, now long gone, leaned over the deck sprinkling pink gauzy flowers along the wooden bench seats. The garden spot that normally this time of year would already be tilled and planted now lay silent waiting for, maybe longing for, the forked spade of my mother-in-law turning over the earth. The frogs, probably lined up on the fallen tree trunk in the south pond, chirped like it was any farm day. They did not know there was change in the wind.

In my mind, I heard that song...”that was yesterday and yesterday is gone”…