Bob

Last night, my in-laws’ neighbor Bob passed away. We’ll have to tell the kids this morning and there will be some tears shed. We’ve had to share five deaths with our children that I can remember. My brother-in-law died when we only had two kids and they were 2 and 2 months, so we didn’t have to worry too much about explanations. Next was my grandfather. We had three kids at that time and they were about 6, 4, and 1. We didn’t live close to my grandparents and hardly saw them, so I wasn’t expecting the emotional response we got, especially from our 6yo. The next was about a year later, and was our elderly neighbor. We had some pretty regular interaction with his wife, but hadn’t spent much time with the man. Again, I was surprised at how sad the girls got. Are they especially sensitive, or is there just an instinctive reaction against death that we are born with? The fourth death was, of course, the hardest, as it was my father, and if you are a regular reader of my blog you know how difficult that was for our entire family. Last year, another (now former) neighbor passed away, and again, there were many tears shed by the girls and surprise on my part. This was another older man, and my older girls remembered him coming by regularly to give them cookies and other little gifts when we lived in TN.

So, now we are about to share Bob’s passing with them. Besides my dad, this one will probably be the hardest. Bob was a retired widowed pig farmer who lived in a trailer next door to my in-laws. My memories of him will always be tied to my son. He was always giving W tractor rides when the kids were visiting there and that was a major thrill. As a rule, we require our children to call their elders “Mr.” or “Miss,” but we made an exception for Bob. We tried to attach Mr. to his name, but it just wouldn’t stick. Part of the reason was that W has some speech issues, but he was always able to say Bob very clearly. For awhile, that was all I heard around here! His Little People farmer was Bob. So were all the other Little People.  Every farmer in a book was Bob. When he put on his cowboy hat, he was Bob. Everyone with a cowboy hat at Walmart (which, in SD, was a lot of people) was greeted with a joyful, “BOB!” It was such a sweet stage in his little life and I already miss it.

I didn’t know Bob very well, but he was very cheerful, sweet to my kids, and had a fun, booming voice. My husband has known him almost his whole life, and he remembers him as being the happiest man he knew. What a great legacy! We had a wonderful discussion at church yesterday about our attitudes about work. Someone made the point that any honest work you do as unto the Lord is your “calling.” You don’t necessarily have to be doing what you love (although of course that’s what we all hope for!) to be following the Lord’s leading in your life. Our joy should be in him first. My husband saw that in Bob. His identity wasn’t wrapped up in pig farming. His joy was in the Lord and in the love of the life he’d been blessed with. I hope that lesson stays with us.

The tractor rides will be missed.