Grandpa Charlie

The new year had brought a new set eager anticipations on the farm. With our hens now laying we were looking forward to enjoying our very own farm raised eggs. Looking forward to the warming weather of spring we were eagerly planning out our first big farm garden. Graph paper drawings littered the tops of most our tables in the house, from random ideas that had entered our minds and consequently released onto paper. Our does were getting bigger with their impending kidding times coming in a couple of months. Life was exciting. Then on one otherwise unmemorable evening I received a phone call from by brother. He informed me that my Grandpa had fallen ill and was in the hospital. My brother told me that the doctor had pronounced that Grandpa was dying and wouldn't live for much longer. Grandpa Charlie was a very special person in my life. He had been one of the men who raised me. My mother had died when I was a teen and Grandpa and Grandma took me in at the farm and raised me. I'm not fully familiar with the details of how he came to Montana but I knew enough to think it was exciting. Somewhere around 1970 in the outskirts of Chicago, Grandpa decided he didn't want his family raised in the city. He and Grandma began looking for places and to my knowledge they purchased the tree farm in Montana site unseen. Back then they obviously didn't have the advantage of the internet to research properties and they didn't have nearly enough money to travel and look the place over. They traveled to Montana with everything they owned and I believe, at that time, 5 children (they had eight total). They had no knowledge of tree farming,of Montana nor did they know anyone out there or have any relatives. To think of this now as a grown man with children, the courage this move took is amazing. Grandpa didn't have a job lined out and it took pretty much all of their money to make the move. They arrived in Montana in late fall I believe and were going to see no cash flow from the farm until at the earliest Springtime. I remember listening to the stories of that first winter and how they lived on deer meat that they were lucky enough to hunt. Eventually, Grandpa landed a good job, and for the next 20 something years he would work full time at his "real" job and come home after and work on the farm until dark. I watched this as a young man but never respected it until now. Even with all the work that he was doing that man never missed a sporting event or school function of any of his kids or grand kids. That may be speaking a little out of turn, I'm sure he missed one or two, but not any of mine that I can remember. Not just the home games but he or my grandma would travel to the away games, at night, through blizzards, whatever just so we could look up in the stands and see a loving face, or hear the supportive cheers. After all the kids had grown and went their separate ways they sold that farm and went fishing. I asked him years later, when I finally matured and wanted to farm myself, why he hadn't let one of his kids take the place over and try to keep it in the family. He told me that all the kids had other things they were supposed to do. When I asked about me, he frankly told me that I was in no way close to being mature enough.
I thought about these things as my family and I were driving to Montana to visit with Grandpa one last time. In the Bible we are told that a good man leaves an inheritance for his children and children's children. It was on this drive that I finally understood this passage. The inheritance Grandpa left me was the love to grow things and the desire to raise my children in a "farm" style life, where they can learn the value of working hard. Grandpa passed away a day after we arrived. The seed he had planted in my heart years ago had laid dormant like that of a plant seed in the soil waiting for the spring to bring life back. Just as Grandpa left this earth his farm was passed on to the next generation, it just wasn't located in the mountains of Montana anymore it was now in Washington. Grandpa never saw my farm before he died, I hope he can see it now and is smiling that smile.