The farm

 The evening brought the sound of rain hitting the old tin roof of my grandparents' home. Tucked away in a Holler far from the city, it was where they called home for over sixty years. They choose the life they lived never regretting anything especially their love for each other. I would visit them as a young boy, learning the way of the land. Grandpa gave me a little too much rope, Grandma would say, but she knew neither of us would listen, so she just asked God to keep me safe. 

I was seven when he taught me to drive the tractor, and I spent many happy hours plowing the tobacco fields as Grandpa sipped some iced tea on the porch, smiling and waving. He showed me how the tobacco was hung to dry in the barn and told me I was a natural-born farmer. I spent eighteen years of my young life with them and learned more than any book could teach me.

Grandpa passed away first and left Grandma and me with broken hearts. She held my hand at his funeral, whispering to me how much he loved me, but I knew that. I loved him back and held onto my memories for the rest of my life. Grandma joined him two years later, and the old tobacco farm was left to me. Time had taken a toll on the old place. Even the soil was tired of producing crops, and I had a life in the city, so I sold it and paid one last visit, sitting on the weathered porch sipping iced tea and waving to my memories of Grandpa as he plowed the fields of his yesterdays.

Mike  2024