Randall Van Gelder--1919-2019

It must have been stressful. What did I know?--a son-in-law who didn't know a thing about farrowing or markets, combines or rotary hoes? He was leaving, even though neither his daughter nor I guessed he ever could. He was having a sale, a farm sale, everything in the machine shed, three old tractors, Nipco heaters, air pumps, whatnot--it was all going.

It must have been stressful, but I don't remember it being so, in part because I knew the decision to leave the farm and go to town had been made. There was no looking back. One Sunday afternoon, he and I had gone out to the barn, just as he must have since the day he and his wife moved out there decades before. "I'm retiring," he said. Not much more. He wasn't a man who liked to talk. In his life, he never jabbered. 

I was shocked. I'm guessing I looked it and likely said it. 

His reason was right there when I wondered why: "I don't care to go through another harvest." 

Harvest stressed him, so he was putting it behind him, having a sale, a farm sale. 

A ton of people showed up. All men. Lots of farm caps. Lots of coveralls. It was a cold, gray day on ground that got slippery and wet, a muddy mess. 

And there was a lot of the kind of seriousness on that face in that picture on top, lots of worry, lots of his life going up on the auction block for prices that got nowhere near to matching what that old Allis meant to him through all those years. 

But whole deal had to be done. They were moving to town. His wife would be happy finally--she never really liked hogs in the back yard, or the farm itself for that matter. He comforted his stress by telling himself, I imagine, that there'd be no more harvests any more. That he'd be done with all that stress. They were moving to town, and--he didn't know it then--they'd have many years together off the farm, as many as on.

My father-in-law died last night, as quietly as he'd ever lived. He'd been in decline for weeks already. When, two months ago, we celebrated his 100th birthday, he was only sometimes with us--and not often. But the nurses claimed that right up until an end no one witnessed, he wasn't particularly restless. They did what the could to keep it that way, so that his passing went easily. He was alone, Who knows but he might have preferred leaving that way. His wife did.

This morning he's gone. He's delivered. No one knows exactly what's to come, what Glory really looks like. Me?--I'd like to think his soul soared a bit last night when he left, that once he got above the trees he thought it would be good to check the crops. It was a late spring. Things didn't get in until late. 

If he did soar through the clouds and look down at a bright, moonlit earth, he would have seen his acres full of a good crops--tall corn, handsome beans all around. He would have looked down and smiled, I think. After all, he would have said to himself--and maybe to God too--there was, after all, so much good to remember. There was Bertha and Barbara and the grandkids and great-grandkids. There was church and wheelchair and those years in town and fishing with Arie and working with the Haarsmas. 

I'd like to think as he soared to wherever Glory is, he'd have looked down and remembered those he'd loved, and told the Lord, once again, maybe with a giggle, that there certainly was so very much good to remember, so very, very much.