July 26th, 2010
the barn
My father's best friend of forty-three years is dying. His illness was sudden and misdiagnosed. It was shocking and unexpected; difficult, I think, for my father to swallow initially.
Every day, he drives an hour and a half each way to visit his friend at the hospice centre. Every few evenings, I call him to see how the day went and gauge in my mind how he is holding up. Because I know that helpless, desperate, scared shitless feeling, how it grabs you behind the knees and rocks your entire foundation. I know what it's like to watch someone you'd do anything for slip away and not be able to do a thing about it.
My dad came over last week after the kids went to bed. We sat on the deck with cold Corona's and watched the bats dart across the yard, in and out of trees, and talked. He told me that he recently found himself down by my grandmother's farm. I haven't been down there since the house stood sold, stripped and bare. I haven't had the nerve, though I've thought about it. I've been tempted.
I asked him if it looked the same.
The house is still standing, he said, and I could tell by the tone of his voice that he was a bit surprised by that. I was too.
I asked if the barn was still there.
He shook his head. The big barn is gone, he said.
The big barn is gone. I felt that sentence in my chest.
I closed my eyes and tried to picture my grandmother's homestead without the barn looming large in the distance, resplendent with its rusted roof and old, weather-worn boards, but I couldn't.
I can't imagine my grandmother's house without the barn there.



