October 15, 2006

• Decisions, Decisions

      I’ve been pondering lately on how it is that the decisions/choices we make today can affect other people’s lives long after we’re gone. 

      Some of our decisions will affect people we never have met and never shall meet.  Some are subtle and quiet and will have small effect.........others are more obvious and create a loud bang.  You made any of those lately?  Have I?  Who knows.

      It was around 60 years ago that a young couple, Nick and Helen, fell in love and were married just up the road at Shiloh Church.  Times were hard back then -- money was as scarce as hen’s teeth -- so they made their first home here at Toad Hall with Helen’s parents, Richard and Lula.  Nick was young and strong and more than willing to help his father-in-law work the two farms he owned, which was something Helen’s brothers had no interest in doing.  So it was a happy arrangement and life was good...for a time.

      But things changed, as they are prone to do.  First off, children came -- my late husband Lin and his sister were born to Nick and Helen just two years apart.   Then, five years after Lin’s birth, Helen’s two brothers (who had families of their own by then) carelessly fell into massive debt, and looked to their parents to rescue them.  One of Richard and Lula’s farms had to be sold immediately, and still the debts would take all that the remaining farm could produce.  Nick knew he had to make some hard and fast decisions.  Most importantly, he had to find a job elsewhere to support his wife & children. 

      The first work he could find was night shift in a factory over 40 miles away in the city, and although he was a country boy at heart, the pay was good and Nick took the job without missing a beat.  Another dilemma arose then -- the long dreary commute -- leaving home in the dark and coming back in the dark.  Expressways were years in the future and the route to the factory was via narrow & winding roads, some of which weren’t even paved.  It was nearly a 3-hour trip each way.  One night, Nick was set upon by a couple thugs who had blocked the road to rob him, beat him, and leave him for dead.  Moving to town seemed an urgent and obvious choice.

      With only a few paychecks under his belt, and Nick frantically in search of a home for his family that was closer to his job, he met someone who agreed to sell him a house for a meager down payment and $50 a month.  What a deal!  It must’ve seemed like providence to Nick because he didn’t even consult his young wife before signing on the dotted line. 

      And so they moved.  Far away from parents, siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins -- far away from the church were they were married and the community of friends they’d made.  Far away from the only home that Nick’s wife and two children had ever known.  Far away from Toad Hall. 

      These fifty some odd years later, Helen still lives in there -- stubbornly and proudly in the modest little house near the factory.  She is all alone now, her beloved Nick and her firstborn son lost to cancer,  her two remaining children grown with busy lives of their own.  Her neighborhood has been abandoned by the good friends who used to live there.  Today, it consists of empty houses, lots overgrown with weeds, a different sort of people -- the sort that one doesn’t want to get to know very well -- and Helen, my 83-year-old mother-in-law......whom I love more than I could possibly explain.  She wants to stay forever in that home that Nick provided.  I understand and wholly support her choice, and fervently hope that her wish is granted.  I will fight anyone who tries to move her against her will.  With vigor!

      So I visit Helen often, and the two of us carry on the tradition she used to have with Lin, speaking every single night on the phone just before midnight when she goes to bed (so I know that she’s okay).  Every now and then, she forgets to call me, so I call her.  This arrangement usually works.  When it doesn’t work, as it didn’t the other night when her phone was out of order, I am in the car quicker than you can say Jack Robinson.  The trip to Helen and Nick’s house doesn’t take three hours any more, but it still takes 45 minutes.  And although I never met the man -- he was gone long before I fell in love with his son -- every time I make that trip late at night, generally several times annually for one reason or another, I think about that decision Nick felt obliged to make so many years ago.
   
      Hey Nick!  I think I’d probably have loved you a lot had we met, but GAWD!  I wish to hell you’d found work a little closer to home!     

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  Via Con Dios, Freddy Fender.....
  
  Thanks for sharing your voice and your music.
  I think THAT was a GREAT decision!

  

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  Brief edit: 
  Want a lift?  Go to swamprad's Xanga site (http://www.xanga.com/swamprad) for Sunday, October 15 & click on the YouTube video there!  Guaran-damn-TEED to make you smile BIG!  (Thanks, Swamp!)
  

  
  

  Additional edit: 
  Scratch the above and go HERE instead:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pkh5opBp6K4
  (Yes, you'll hafta cut & paste because I seem to be technically retarded.  But it's worth it...I SWEAR!)

  
  
  

  • 11:39 am
  • 12 Comments