dar334

When I was 3 years old, my parents planted me in Larner soil, one square acre on the south side of their farm land.  As the story goes, my dad and Wesley paced it off together.  There has never, to the best of my knowledge, been a survey done, just two farmers at heart pacing off a parcel of land.  Knowing these two men the way I do, I’m sure a handshake sealed the deal.

The call came this morning that Wesley had passed away, at his home, with his wife holding his hand.

As my heart cried for the ones left behind, my mind started racing through all the things I wish I could say at his funeral.  You know that time, when the Pastor asks if anyone would like to share a memory with those in attendance.  That moment you could hear a pin drop, when someone actually raises their hand or stands to speak.  When you know you are not going to be able to maintain any sort of composure as they share something.  I won’t be able to stand up, let alone speak at this funeral.  My roots are planted too deeply, one little tug and the floodgates would surely burst open.

As I’m going through this day, the memories are literally falling from my eyes.  I remember riding on the hay wagon as he pulled the baler with the bigger kids stacking the bales.  As each row was completed, we got to move up higher on the wagon.  Wesley would be yodeling like nobody I’d ever heard before, I never wanted the baling to be done because the yodeling would stop.  We would then end up back in Margaret’s kitchen drinking “Fizzies”, Wesley’s kids and me.  I asked him not long ago if he could still yodel, the little kid in me hoping he would respond with a heartfelt bellow, but he laughed and said he had no idea if he could or not.  I wish now I would have said “pleeeeease???”

He milked a few cows and I’d stand fascinated from the time their necks were hooked into that neck thingie until they were emptied and released.  The milk was stored in a big silver tank until the milk truck would come and pick it up.  It was at this point, in the summer, us kids got to get inside and slide around as Wesley rinsed it out.   It was impossible to stand up on that shiny smooth surface and the water was ice cold.

There was always a big rope tied in the hay mow for us to swing back and forth on.  The brave kids would swing from end to end, but I was always too afraid.  I remember him being able to put his hands around my waist and his fingers and thumbs would  almost touch, he’d laugh at how skinny I was, and then I’d get to stay for supper.

It was Wesley and his family that picked me up a few times for church on Sunday mornings.  I would get all dressed up and pin a doily on my head and wait in the driveway to pile in their car for the 3 mile trip to the church on Front Street.  It was there my seed was planted.

When I got married in 1976, my husband and I moved into our own place.  When my dad retired in 1982 we moved back to that one square acre of Larner soil.  I was back home.  Wesley and his family welcomed my husband with open arms.  We were blessed to raise our children here.

We are now members of the church the Larner family introduced me too so many years ago, though a new building has been built on a different plot of land.  The building we will gather in to remember one of the most influential men in my life.  The same building my husband and I were married in, and the same building our daughter was married in by Wesley’s daughter, my childhood playmate, now a Methodist minister.  He raised a loving and amazing family, and touched the lives of so many, including me.  He will live on in all of us.

Rest in Peace Wesley.

-Darlene