2019-09-01 Reader\'s Digest

calling than farming, just like Dad.

Then, one April morning, my father

was felled by a massive heart attack, at

age 68. The entire family was shocked

by his passing, none more than me.

Why I ventured out to that old

house on a day shortly after my fa-

ther’s funeral is still beyond me. It

was as though it were calling; even the

trees seemed to whisper an invitation

to come, to visit, to tarry awhile.

As I stood once again on that an-

cient linoleum, my eye was drawn to

a jumble of papers on the floor. An

envelope, yellowed with age, lay on

top. A blue stamp on the envelope

read “Passed by Naval Censor.” How

could I have missed this artifact? My

father had served aboard the USS

Washington during World War II and

had written home whenever he could.

My grandmother saved all of his letters.

I removed one letter carefully from

its envelope. It was dated Septem-

ber 1944. My father would have been

somewhere in the South Pacific at that

time and all of 18 years old. I studied

the familiar scrawl. Dad wondered

how the oat harvest had been and

how his uncle’s new team of horses

was working out. He supposed that

his youngest brother was starting first

grade and imagined that he was be-

coming quite the little man. He asked

his mother to greet everyone and said

that he missed them all.

It wasn’t hard to read between the

lines. Here was a homesick young man,

a kid really, who had spent his entire

life dwelling upon a sea of prairie grass.

Now he was on a different kind of sea,

an ocean that was being roiled by the

thunder and the lightning of a world

at war. At the bottom of the page, in

underlined print, my father had passed

on one last message. Tears burned my

eyes as I read those words he had so

carefully emphasized: “All is well here.

Please don’t worry. I am doing fine.”

As I left the old house that day, I took

one last glance back at it over my shoul-

der. I don’t care what anyone thinks, I

decided. That old house gets to stay

there until it rots into the earth. RD

from the book dear country agent guy by jerry

nelson, copyright © 2016 by jerry nelson.

reprinted with permission by workman publishing.

all rights reserved.

An Online Connection

My girlfriend and I are sharing an Amazon account.

We’re Prime-mates.

@hansabumsadaisy

I FELT AS THOUGH

I HAD STUMBLED ONTO

A TIME CAPSULE.

Reader’s Digest Life Well Lived

26 september 2019