...Home

I’m going home tomorrow, but it’s not the same home.  It’s a home minus someone who has always been there.  Minus Grandad. 

When I come home he’s always there, he will drive up to the front door in the morning to deliver the mail, to remind me that dinner will be ready at their house at noon, to tell me Gramma is excited to see me, to let me know he’s got some letters for me that are still being delivered to the house.  The beautiful thing is that it is typically junk mail from the UW Alumni Association but he always keeps them in a pile at the house to give to me when I get home.

He was always there.  He wasn’t outspoken, he wasn’t emotional, he wasn’t gregarious.  He was just there.  There with a smile and a story and some stability.  He was always there and he would always would be, there.   Academically I knew that couldn’t be the case; emotionally, I made myself believe it could be.

No, home will never be the same because he is no longer there.  Grandad is gone and it breaks my heart.  I’ll never again feel that all-encompassing bear hug.  Never again hear that deep chuckle.  Never again listen to those stories.  I’ll never sit in that cluttered, warm, comfortable house smelling slightly like bacon grease, on that worn couch covered in cat hair with the radio on in the corner and the walls and tables covered in pictures of the grandkids growing up surrounding a framed, faded Christmas Card from John and Jackie Kennedy, listening to stories about the weather and the crops and the old depot and how they met each other and the flood in 1947 and everything else that one collects in 80-some years.  I’ll never again have the opportunity to answer his questions about how life was overseas or out east or down south or wherever else I had been.  How was the food?  How was the weather?  How were the people?  You know, there were a couple Turks that worked on the railroad back in the day and they were really good people…and off we were on another fascinating story.  I would do a little bit of answering but a lot more listening on that couch covered in cat hair, completely enraptured, soaking in the beauty of Home.  But as of today, I’ll never walk back down that sidewalk late at night under the Montana sky marveling at how great it was to be able to come back to this.  To live a life at terminal velocity but to always know I had this to come Home to.

In March of 2012, I called to tell my Grandad that my Grandpa had passed.  I broke down in tears while on the phone with him trying to get the words out.  But still, he was there, comforting, saying “well Kris, I’m really sorry to hear that, but we’re all getting older and we all have to go at some time.  Give our love to your Grandma and let us know when the service is”.  It wasn’t cold, it wasn’t unfeeling, it was a man comfortable with where he was in life.  Knowing he wouldn’t always be there even though I refused to consider that possibility.

Because he would always be there, right?  He was going to be there forever, right?  He would always drive up, slowly get out of the car, pat the dog du jour on the head, make his way to the front door with the mail, give me a big hug, and tell me dinner would be ready at noon.  It would always be this way, right?

Wrong.  Early morning on 8 October he was no longer there.  Leave it to a farmer to leave the house before sun up.

Inevitability does not make things easier.  But if there’s anything to be thankful for its when the inevitable happens the way it should.  Jim Wood passed away in his home on Wood River Ranch with his wife of 70 years by his side…a Montana farmer till the end.  If you knew him you loved him and we’re all better for having him there in our lives, listening to his stories, and learning from his example of how to live right and take care of each other.  We’re all better that he was there and he was Home.