Carl used his white cane to guide him to the mud room where his black boots sat on the floor next to a chair from the last time he put them on, this time yesterday. It was a chore of love toward his daughter Susan that he did this each and every day except Sunday.
He methodically put on his logger boots and laced them up. The macular degeneration took away his sight but not his memory. Unlike his wife of seventy years, he still remembered how to lace his boots and other things too.
He heard her busy about the kitchen, his daughter was outside by her vegetable garden, an affair that brought envy to him every time he walked out there and smelled the beets, the potatoes, carrots and tomatoes, all ready for harvest this October afternoon.
“I should wait until she gets back inside. I’m supposed to look after Ginny. But the mailman came and there might be an important letter awaiting for me or a bill from the electric co-op.”
Just then she walked in with a basket of vegetables, mostly sugar peas and tomatoes, ripe and ready for the soup pot. She had handsome looks, though that too was a memory of Carl’s since the best he could do anymore was caress her daughter’s face, feeling the soft weathered flesh of her face, mouth, and hair.
“Oh, you came in now,” Carl stated with a slight Norwegian accent to his baritone voice. “I wanted to wait so that Ginny wouldn’t get into trouble.”
“I appreciate that Poppa. She hasn’t been herself lately and I’m worried for her,” she told Carl with more than a hint of concern emanating from her middle-aged voice. She had just turned fifty-nine yesterday, though Carl didn’t know what day which was anymore. They all blended together.
“I will be back shortly, Susan.”
“Take your time,” she advised him. “When you get back, I’ll have dinner started,” she promised him while she set the basket on the floor and removed her dirt covered shoes and placed slippers on her feet.
Carl moved the cane side to side imagining in his mind where everything was to his darkened world. He heard and felt the cane strike the front door and he grasped the door handle, turning it and opening the door then stepping outside. He immediately felt the waning sun in his face while he walked in that very direction to the single lane road that led to the main road and the mailbox that stood sentry-like alongside that road. It wasn’t a long walk, but it was a goodly distance away and at the speed his old but gangly legs could muster it all took an hour to get there and back. Susan had her late husband place a folding chair around halfway up the road so that Carl could sit down and rest for a bit. He recalled he died last year from a massive heart attack. His name was Sam and he homesteaded this land and died making it all work out for him.
“Mother no!” Carl heard Susan scream at her mother.
“What did you do now Ginny?” He shook his head sadly knowing her demented mind lost all ability to reason or comprehend the simplest of tasks. Anymore, just having her sit quietly in the TV room vacantly staring off in the distance remembering a time long ago when her mind was sharper and more focused, she would be this darling angel that he fell in love with when they were teenaged sweethearts courting behind the barn.
Jerry Schellhammer 