The Last Farmer

Farmers are anything but rock stars. They get up early and work. They sow, plow, toil, and protect. In all of it, they beg God for rain.  No, they aren't rock stars but they are built like rocks.  Solid, unmoving, steadfast.  They have a gaze that sees things that most don't.  They squint and the world comes into focus.  They know when it rains when the familiar pain twinges in their knees.  They smell the weather...they feel the world.  They seem to just know things.... how things should and shouldn't be.  They know about right and wrong in their bones.  They move slowly, but always lean forward and their wit is lightning quick.  They don't need to use a lot of words to get to the real meaning of things.  

Yes..... my dad was a farmer.  

The last in his line.... 

When he was baling hay, tending to cattle and watering the crops, something beckoned inside... He was a cowboy that started to form big non-cowboy ideas... Ideas that grew and became bigger than the state of Arizona.  They needed more land to grow in and he needed a wider horizon. So, he traded in his boots for an airplane and took us around the world.   You can't take the farm out of the farmer..... Although he dined with Ambassadors and Presidents, he always put tabasco on everything he 'et and always fixed the car himself. 

He painted the world with his wit, he made every joke understandable in every language and culture.  He was welcome at every campfire in every nation.... Though no statues will be raised, no monuments with his name, he will leave a lasting legacy of himself.  

The seeds of his posterity have been sown deep in rich soil and have sprung forth in a multitude of goodness.  His gaze has shifted from vast foreign lands to the eternal hinterland of his mind... and lingers on those that have gone after him.  What joy he has in tending to these that are fruit of his vineyard of eternal increase.

Now, as he wrings every ounce he can with every interaction he has, he finds something to give, of himself.  He has done this his whole life.  He has been willing to give his life away to other people.

I am one of those other people..... 

He has given me laughter, he has given me understanding, he has given me hope, he has given me mirth.  He has given me the world, so that I could see things differenlty.  He opened up doors that few ever even knew existed, doors to inexpressible joy, doors that connected me to people all over this world.  Doors to diversity, doors to awakenings, doors to understanding, doors to empathy, and doors that allowed me to love more uniquely.

I do not know what he will give me next, but I know it will be something solid, unmoving and steadfast.  It will be like a rock, that I can find my footing with, where I can stand with surety and strength.  

Yes, my dad was a farmer,... The last of his kind.  

And although I will never really know what that means, and maybe, just maybe I don't need to as I watched and learned what it meant to him.  What makes a farmer isn't the crops, the animals and the land after all....What makes a farmer a farmer comes from within.  It is part of who he is.  I have spent my life watching him give his life away to others..... one precious piece at a time with every touch.

He is in charge of the number of days that are left now.... He will know when to give away the last of himself.....His eyes will be perfectly focused, his gaze clear and he won't use very many words...but it will be lasting, this I know.

And then...in a coming day I will be left with the defining burning question that will cause me to refine my focus, raise my gaze, and sink me to my knees and decide if what I have given away thus far, has been enough.... and then spend the rest of my life making sure that it is.