Corndogs + Avocados

I was in Salt Lake a week or so ago to visit some family and had an interesting discussion with someone about living far from people we love. We both discovered we were missing people from home - some who are still there and some who have long since passed on. I grew up in a small town where my parents and remaining grandparents live, and I often wonder if it’s wrong of me to choose to live so far away from them. They are not getting any younger and the time we have together in this world is definitely getting shorter.

Grandpa (only one remaining these days on either side of the family) just had knee replacement surgery and is doing alright - although not great. I wish I could be there to support him. He always supported me when I was growing up. He taught me to drive a light delivery (that’s a pickup truck to the uninformed) when I was 12. It was an old Mazda truck with a standard transmission, and he let me drive it up and down the road alongside the farm until I had mastered the dance between the clutch and the shifter. He taught me how to burn the barrow pits and explained why we did it. He taught me to drive a tractor and how to operate a drill, swather, combine, harrow, square and round baler, and other implements. He taught me to drive a grain truck and how to maneuver underneath the auger of a combine so it could empty its hopper on-the-fly without stopping. We branded cattle together, shoveled grain, and moved irrigation pipes - both wheel lines and hand moves. We took grain to the elevators, hauled water for the cistern, and planted and weeded his garden. And, to top it all off, he paid me to do all these great things with him. Now when he needs support I’m a thousand miles away complaining about my commute. Luckily my own dad is there to watch over Grandpa and take care of him.

Thursday night Liz and I went to the Oakland temple and as I was sitting in the waiting room a older lady walked past, hunched, and using a walker. She must have been well into her 80s. For some reason she reminded me of my own mom who is neither 80 nor hunched nor in need of a walker. But the thought that ran through my mind was who will take care of mom and dad when they’re older and in need of constant care? “Not me” shot through my mind and in an instant I felt selfish and ashamed. Again, here are people who sacrificed everything for me to ensure I was healthy and happy and involved, and how do I repay them? By living far away so they can never see me.

One of my first jobs after my mission was at a Turbo gas station in town. The cashier was a local woman who was about 5 years older than I who was married, had a few children, and had lived in town her whole life. I couldn’t understand how she was happy living in that tiny little town and when I indignantly asked her she replied that she couldn’t image living anywhere else because she’d be too far from her family. Fast forward 12 years and I totally get her now.