Without faith, life wouldn’t be worth living. Some days, I envision VST up there in the heavens tossing a football with his buddies John Mora and Derick Wilson. With no pain of any kind, there they are having a Touch Down kind of day. I hope don’t peek down here to see the sorrow and suffering of the world. They lived enough of that when they were alive.
Through the years, I learned so much from him. Very seldom did he play the pity card. If there was a problem, it was identified, analyzed, and repaired. No problem was too big or small. As I’ve said before, one of his favorite lines was , “Can’t go nowhere on yesterday’s train”. Truer words were never spoken.
People would ask him how he accomplished everything in his daily life. Through our farming years, he raised five children to adulthood, made a home for his parents across the drive, while keeping the mastiffs in 20 pounds of dogfood a week. He made part runs and did 100% of the repairs on very old farm equipment. He completed three University degrees, the last being a Doctorate in Psychology. He did every bit of tractor work on the farm, with each trip on the tractor being 16 miles long, going at a snail’s pace. He made 30 trips to Hawaii over 17 years, and made time for boating trips to the California Delta. All this while working 7-6, running a multi-million dollar John Deere franchise in the Central San Joaquin Valley.
VST had three main careers in life. Farming, private business management, and social work. He flipped houses on the side. Between 2014-2015, we moved a bulging trailer of our belongings to Virginia City, one weekend load at a time. Fifty two weekends, fifty two loads, each one carefully packed by him. Leaving for the six hour trip on Friday night after working all day, we’d enjoy the time together. On Sunday, sad to leave, we’d head back home to return to our day jobs.
Over our 32 years together, friends and family would ask “How is there time for you to do all of this?” He would smile his dimpled smile and say, “Well, there are 24 hours in a day.” He squeezed life out to the last second. While doing this, he was calm and collected as he rested on his faith in God. Comforted by the ultimate knowledge that life wouldn’t throw anything at him that he couldn’t handle, he made touch down after touch down right up to the finish line.
Some days, finding faith is tough. Crafty is the devil. Some days, the madness of the world is astounding. I’ve found that turning the television to the off position is a start. Such things on display! Decency isn’t fashionable or current. What a shame.
K took a beautiful picture on the morning her dad passed to the other side. The sky was dark that day. Scary and ominous, she captured a moment we all felt. We were losing our rock. Our leader. Our hero. He couldn’t stay and somehow, we’d needed to find a way to let him go. God chooses, certainly not us. What wasn’t captured was the brilliant blue sky later in the day. These days my winter has passed and life has become the most brilliant of blues.
With faith, I moved to a town in which I knew two friends and my realtor. I bought a house that I didn’t know. I had two vehicles that I trusted would not break down, leaving me stranded. I drove miles through deserted desert having faith that I wouldn’t be abducted and murdered. I found a way to sleep soundly at night. I risked new friendships with total strangers, putting faith in a smile and kind eyes. But, most of all, I put faith in God’s love for me. God carried me through the flames of grief and I wasn’t burned. Through those days, he surely knows my tears. A true comfort in this crazy world, my faith increases every day.
To be a successful farmer, you need to have faith. Buying the farm in March 1990, we were excited and nervous about the venture. Although we grew up in a vast sea of vines, we had never owned one, let alone 16,500 of them. Being 100 years old, thank goodness their wisdom and perseverance helped us through. The vines knew what to do and they did it. The first week we owned the ranch, there was an early winter frost. The temps dropped to -11 degrees Fahrenheit. For California, that’s unheard of.
A long time girlfriend, a little jealous of our adventure, called me the morning after the frost.
“Do you think the frost last night killed your vines?” All the vineyards were still dormant, but no one really knew what damage the severe frost could have done. Worry about that very thing had robbed us of sleep the night before. We could have just purchased 40 acres of dead vines.
“No. No. No. God has this covered. The vines will be fine.”
Just like that, we felt better in our faith. On March 15th, bud-break occurred. Tiny little leaves came out everywhere. By April 15th, little bunches of grapes bloomed, and the race to harvest was on. Soon, the frost was just a distant memory, as our first Sunmaid raisin crop was on the ground, drying in the San Joaquin Valley heat. God had us covered all along.
Whatever the trouble, find your faith. Everything will be okay, even when the darkest of clouds block the blue sky behind. Remember to use your time wisely, for time is a terrible thing to waste. The days are short. Get hopping.