Published in the Globe and Mail 2009
The little jeep went first, sold to a cousin who would give it a good home. Next was the RV, not the most reliable vehicle but old enough to be deemed “retro.”
The two tractors were snatched up fairly quickly. Surprisingly, the old International Harvester with no battery was easier to sell than the nearly new Massey Ferguson. The 1978, 29-foot cruiser sat in the drive shed for longer, but it too eventually found a new captain.
These were my father’s toys. When he passed away, my mother sensibly decided that she could not keep his collection of vehicles, nor could she handle living alone in their 130-year-old stone house on a 100-acre farm.
She soon found a nice place in a nearby town – a house big enough to accommodate grandchildren, but small enough to handle on her own. The only thing she needed to do now was sell the farm, the house and the contents of my father’s enormous drive shed.
The last of my father’s toys to go was the big, black, 1966 Ford three-quarter-ton truck (with a power winch on the front). Big Black was responsible for hauling load after load of cut logs out of the woods to stoke the furnace of the old house. She towed the boat to and from the lake. On countless occasions she pulled the jeep out of the swamp after my father, just to give himself a challenge, had driven it in.
If Big Black got stuck she would winch herself out using a nearby tree. If she happened to pull the tree out instead, the old tractor would be called in to clean up the mess. Through all this, with muck and chains flying, my father would be beaming. He was never happier than when testing horsepower.
When a buyer finally arrived to claim Big Black and I watched her lurch out of our gravel driveway for the last time, I felt a lump form in my throat. My eyes welled up, but didn’t overflow.
I fully expected to shed a few tears after I hung up the phone with my mother one day. “I just signed the deal,” she had said. “Closing date is October 1st.”
The sale of the beautiful old farmhouse where I grew up, along with acres of woods, fields and a picturesque meadow valley, should have been a terribly emotional experience. But for some reason my eyes remained dry.
My lack of tears is surprising to me because I am, as my husband will attest, an emotional person. I’m not hot-tempered, but I will cry anywhere and for almost any reason. Movies are a given, though I admit I must add the likes of Independence Day and Cars to the old standards of Gone with the Wind and Beaches.
The only way I can avoid crying at a wedding is to tune out what anyone else is saying. Even this doesn’t always work.
If someone honks at me while I’m driving, I will cry. If a stranger speaks sharply to me, my eyes will well up. If I have to ask a favour of a boss or, God help me, complain to someone at customer service, my cheeks will turn blotchy and my voice will crack.
I can’t read The Polar Express or The Velveteen Rabbit to my sons without tearing up. Even Horton Hears a Who! overwhelms me.
I was recently pulled over for speeding. Although my sobs made the police officer feel sorry for me, they didn’t dissuade him from giving me a ticket. At least he overlooked the fact that neither my insurance form nor my registration were anywhere to be found in my messy minivan.
And yet, I’m not inclined to cry when the home in which I was raised, nurtured and loved will no longer be part of my life. The woods in which I walked alone, singing to myself and daydreaming, will be closed to me. And my valley, with its arbours and vibrant ponds, will never again welcome me.
As I watched Big Black chug out of my life and felt the lump form in my throat, I was struck by a thought: I now had the awesome responsibility of holding on to my father’s memory without any physical props. It wasn’t the big old dirty truck that I wanted to hang on to – it was my father.
I have cried over my father. I continue to do so every once in a while, but even though it has been less than a year since he passed away, I’ve become content with the memories I have of him. Those memories will stay with me, whether there is a truck in the garage or not. I will miss my woods, my valley and my stone house, but I can find equally beautiful homes and landscapes elsewhere.
It’s true that memories can fade, but hanging on to relics of the past for which I have no practical uses won’t make my memories of my father any more vibrant. That stone house is no longer his; it is only slabs of stone and mortar.
I know my father’s spirit isn’t part of a 1966 Ford; it’s not even part of the woods or valley that he loved. His spirit is in me and it goes where I go.