I wrote this column decades ago. Now I'm older than the widowed man who inspired it. Now I have friends who've lost their life partners and many others who are facing this inevitability. As are we all.
I found this yellowed clipping in a tucked-away "miscellaneous" folder. I was surprised that the younger me kinda got it about this time of life. The older me sure does.
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| This was an early weekly column of mine published in the newspaper. Later it was called Second Thoughts. |
The drive led through high brush and opened onto a rough clearing. It was the kind of clearing that looks like the forest would gobble it up if your back was turned too long.
An older fella sat on a straight-backed chair at the edge of an unkempt yard. He tipped back in his chair to look me over as I stepped out of my VW van.
The yard sale was disappointing. There wasn't much in the way of toys for my little boy, who was with me. No plaid wool shirt for my husband, no vintage clothing or kitchen gadgets for me.
The old man, however, was interesting. He followed us around the sale, offering a comment here and there. He seemed disoriented like it wasn't really his stuff at the yard sale. He seemed to feel a need to explain.
"Ya, I've been alone now six months," he said. ""No need for all these things now. No one to answer to when I get up in the morning. No work and no wife." And he laughed a dry little laugh.
I poked around in the yard sale: a pressure cooker, polyester women's clothing, a few colored bottles, ashtrays, books.
My son spotted a tiny electric organ and wanted to try it.
"Oh, it's all full of dust," the man apologized. His light blue eyes were watery and bloodshot. His face was blustery. He spat tobacco and shuffled around, wanting to talk.
"My wife got this for me," he said, nodding toward the organ.
"Never did learn to play it."
Together we got the thing to work. It wheezed thin organ noise, but the sound was lost in the racket of a near-by mill and the roaring traffic on the I-5 corridor.
I fiddled with a lawn decoration, a donkey that kicked its heels when a propeller it was attached to was spun around.
"Wife got that for me," the man said. "Almost don't feel right selling it. She said I was a jackass and got that for me when I come home from a work trip," he said, a smile trying to happen. "It has real sentimental value."
The plastic donkey kicked up its heels while my little boy spun its propeller, oblivious to sentimental value, growing old or losing a life partner.
"I got a call in Alaska that she was sick," he said like he still could not believe it. "Six months later, she was gone."
"Cancer?" I asked.
"Yes," he said and spat into the dust.
"We had plans," he told me. "We were going to do so many things when we retired, but now all that is gone."
We spoke a bit about how nothing on this earth can be counted on to last. He told me of his plans to travel and, like the plastic donkey, kick up his heels.
"Maybe one day I'll settle down again," he mused, but it didn't seem like he was ready for any heel-kicking.
"We pretty much got wiped out this last year," he said to no one in particular. "Hospital bills came to about $75,000 and not much covered by insurance. About wiped us out. About wiped me out," he amended.
His words leaked out in slow motion and hung around his head a while before disappearing into the woods. His trailer house squatted against a lush Oregon hillside. An old log structure sat incongruously nearby. The yard sale surrounded him.
"I'm selling everything," he said, sweeping a hand around. "Everything."
Together we looked at what represented everything in his life. Old boots, a folding cot, his wife's clothing, cracked dishes. The donkey yard decoration.
Another potential customer drove into the yard. A young man busted out of his pickup as if he was afraid somebody else would get the juicy bargains if he didn't get to them first.
"Well," I said, lamely. "Goodbye. And good luck in your travels."
The man did not respond but looked past me into the Rogue Valley's afternoon haze.
My empty words spiraled and fell flat into the dust.
