He is ninety now and worn thin, flesh little more than the skin that covers him. His voice is as weak as his body, though he finds times of alertness and subtle hints of humor. Pneumonia brought him to the hospital this time but it is not the only sign of the age that he bears.

For three years now, or longer, he has taken what little nourishment he can stand through a feeding tube. His wife is nearly as worn down as he is from the constant work and worry of caring for him but believes it is her duty and devotion to do so. In this, too, they shoulder the burden and beliefs of their generation.

I study him as he lies in his bed, eyes closed, breath occasionally loud and rasping. His hair is thin and gray and yesterday’s stubble roughs his face. Wrinkles frame his eyes, define his neck. The skin is pale, fragile looking, stark across his ribs. Only his hands bear testimony of the man who has lived in this body. Though soft now, they still show the character of work, of years of farming.

Decades ago, he rode the train down to Dearborn and courted a schoolteacher. After they married, each day after working in Saint Joe, he’d stop by the lumberyard. He brought home boards and studs one small load at a time lashed on top of the car and built his house at the pace of a man working alone. Those heavy-boned hands helped raise the kids and tended the farm. The son does the farming now but up until just a few years ago, he helped with planting and harvest, with all the things that are a part of that life. It is life, too, that has stripped him of all that. Too weak to walk, he aches for the freedom from this body.

I look at him and see other old men that I loved. Men with hard hands and soft voices, men gentled by memory. Men who lived in hard work and died slow and helpless, bodies made into prisons. Men whose families stood torn between their own loss and the costs paid by the men they loved. Families that finally breathed, “Lord, please, take him home,” and felt the pain of each release.

And yet, were comforted.

H. Arnett
5/12/10