The Wall

For a moment I stood on the front steps and stared through the rusty screen door at Mom as she hummed softly in the kitchen preparing dinner. Her back was to me, so while I built my courage to enter, I watched unobserved, detached momentarily from the familiar scene.

A cool breeze whispered through the elm trees down by the pasture and across the corrals, bringing with it the faint smell of clover mingled with the distinct but not entirely displeasing odor of sun-baked manure and hay. A calf bawled imploringly from the barn, and a pesky fly pinged persistently against the screen door, demanding entrance.

I filled my lungs with the aromas from the kitchen, savoring the rich mixture of Mom’s baking bread, a tantalizing roast, and a trace of lilac that drifted in from the lilac bushes blooming just outside the kitchen window. The table, draped in the old familiar oil cloth that was beginning to wear ragged around the edges, was covered with scrubbed carrots, chopped lettuce, a greased cake pan, and a sprinkling of flour.

I sighed ruefully and pulled the screen door open. It whined a welcome and then chattered noisily behind me as I stepped inside onto the scarred but polished linoleum floor.

“Robert!” Mom called out with surprise, wiping her brow with a damp forearm. Though it had been just a few weeks since I’d seen her last, the gray in her hair seemed more pronounced, and there were deeper lines of worry and stress written across her face. “I had decided you weren’t coming,” she said, stepping toward me with a half-peeled potato in her hand and kissing me on the cheek.

I pressed my lips into a wan smile and set my duffle bag on a kitchen chair. Mechanically I glanced at the hook behind the door and noted that Dad’s faded felt hat was missing. That hat was an extra appendage with Dad. He would have no more considered leaving the house without it than he would have gone without his pants or boots. Mom followed my glance and deciphered my thoughts. “He’s been gone all morning,” she explained.

I nodded, reached for a carrot, reconsidered, and stuffed my hand into my pocket.

“We thought you would be here last night,” Mom called over her shoulder as she returned to the sink.

“I had a date,” I replied sheepishly, avoiding her eyes. Actually I had spent the entire evening in my apartment, sitting on the edge of my bed, debating whether or not I should even come home, struggling with a nagging necessity to speak with Dad and yet perplexed by the simple how. I just couldn’t bear to witness his flesh waste away, the creases in his brow deepen, and his eyes groan in silent agony. I guess I hoped that by not seeing him he would always stay the way I remembered him, robust and full of life.

“Dad will be anxious to visit with you,” Mom commented.

“Yeah,” I muttered softly, pressing my lips together and nodding forlornly. There had been a time when speaking to Dad was the easiest thing in the world for me, but disease had made a stranger of him. I’m sure the inside of him was the same. But, oh, how the outside had changed, and it was this shocking outside, this terrifying shell of the man I had known intimately, which confronted me each time I returned home. I no longer knew the words or had the courage to form the words that would adequately express what was harbored so pointedly in my heart. Just when I most needed and wanted to communicate my feelings, I was driven into a frustrating and unnatural silence. I found myself turning away from Dad as though he were responsible for his condition. Each time I came home, I arrived determined to talk with him and brush away those difficult-to-explain feelings that had spring up from the seeds of my disappointment, but nothing ever worked out. Something was always awkward and wrong. And when I returned to school, I went with all my feelings churning inside me.

“You’ll be here the whole weekend won’t you?” Mom asked as she began rinsing off the potatoes and dropping them into a pan. I didn’t answer. I wanted her to hurry on to another question, but she waited and finally prodded. “You will, won’t you?”

“Well, most of it.”

“You’ll go to church with us?”

I cleared my throat. “I have a test Monday. I’ll have to leave here early tomorrow afternoon. Finals are coming up.” I laughed awkwardly. “I don’t want to blow it these last two weeks.”

It was a lame excuse. We both knew it, but we pretended not to notice. I had changed. It was hard to believe, to hope, to pray, knowing that Dad was slipping away. I hadn’t turned into an infidel, gone inactive or anything that drastic, but there was definitely a portentous fracture in my faith.

I think Mom and Dad suspected, but they didn’t broach the subject. I don’t know if I could have told them had they asked. I didn’t really understand myself. Maybe I was trying to bargain with God, subtly announcing that my diligence was coupled with Dad’s recovery, that my faithfulness would be the payoff for his health.

“Your dad and I are speaking in sacrament meeting. It sure would be nice to have you there. I know you dad is counting on it.”

“Where is Dad, anyway?” I asked, changing the subject.

“At the lot, working on the wall.”

“I should have known,” I mumbled, smiling. “I’ll put my things upstairs and go out and give him a hand.” I turned to go but then stopped. As much as I hated asking the question I knew I would have to. “How has he been?”

Mom’s hands relaxed their grip on the potato she was holding. It dropped and she let her hands sag limply in the sink. “Not very well,” she bemoaned. “His spleen is so swollen. It literally bulges when he lies down. He gets so tired, and he’s so skinny. He can’t keep his pants up now. He has lost almost ten pounds since you were here last. He keeps losing weight, and he just doesn’t have any to spare. I tell him to get suspenders, but you know how he hates them.”

Turning and facing me, she laid bare her fears. “Robert, he’s bad. I can’t help thinking of what Doctor Hart told us when we saw him the first time. He charted the disease. I hate to admit it, but this is the last stage. He hurts all the time. He doesn’t say so until it gets really bad, but I can see it in his eyes. Sometimes I see him gritting his teeth and clenching his fists and I know what’s happening inside of him. I just want to go off by myself and cry.”

“He still hasn’t talked about seeing the doctor again?”

“No,” she whispered with a wan smile, “and he won’t. You know that.”

“And the medicine?”

She shook her head. “He’s convinced that the medicine makes him worse. He’s probably right. He got such terrible headaches while he was on it. He felt drowsy or nauseated and he couldn’t work, and you know that if you dad can’t work, he’s miserable.”

I nodded and smiled knowingly. Idleness was just not a part of Dad. As long as I could remember he was immersed in projects. He always had something going on the farm, in the house, on a piece of equipment, or wrapped up in a new invention—a better way to pump water to the lot, a more efficient way to feed the cattle, a handier way of irrigating the garden. He was the only person I knew who relaxed by working.

Pain, hardship, failure—these were the lurking monsters of most men approaching retirement, but Dad could face those unflinchingly. Idleness was his fear, and now, in his weakened condition, he found it increasingly more difficult to hold it at bay.

“What does Adams say?”

“Dad won’t see him, not as a doctor. He likes him as a friend and a neighbor.”

“Have you talked to Adams lately?”

Mom shook her head tiredly and looked out the window. “He says your dad should be dead,” she answered slowly. “He doesn’t know what’s keeping him going. He says he could drop over tomorrow or keep going another month or so.” Mom paused and looked at me. “I know what’s driving him. His work. That’s what scares me, Robert. He gets so exhausted now. He works for just a few minutes, and he’s completely drained. If he is ever in bed for more than a week or so …”

Neither of us spoke. Neither of us wanted to end that foreboding sentence. We stood and stared out the window at the three milk cows ambling about the corral so we wouldn’t have to see the worry on the other’s face. Finally I picked up my bag and went upstairs to my room.

I sank on the bed, almost wishing I hadn’t come home. My eyes wandered about the room, seeing the things that had been such an integral part of me before going to college. I saw the pictures of my basketball and track teams. The trophies were still on the dresser where Mom kept them dusted and polished. The scrapbooks and the book of remembrance sat prominently on the shelf. My Duty to God pin was mounted on a plaque next to the mirror.

Eventually my eyes rested on the photo of Mom, Dad, and me the night of my Eagle court of honor six years earlier. That was where I always stopped. That was the pivotal point in my life. The week after that picture was taken, Doctor Adams made his doleful discovery. Dad hadn’t been feeling well for some time. He had spent the last 13 years in the bishopric, either as a counselor or bishop. We had just assumed he was run down. No one had ever suspected leukemia!

It was a shattering blow. Mom and the four girls didn’t attempt to disguise the shock, but I tried to be stoic. In reality I cowered behind a wall of impassivity. Behind that hastily built facade, my world teetered. It was so coldly unfair. I began to question the justice of God. Dad had been so good, so faithful, and now he was to be repaid like this.

“Robert,” Mom called from the foot of the stairs. “I fixed a drink for Dad.”

“Okay, I’ll be right down.”

“Tell him dinner will be ready in about an hour. And don’t let him get too tired. He can’t be in bed tomorrow.”

I grabbed a pair of patched jeans from the closet, dug out my work boots from under the bed, and headed for the lot. During the last two years Dad had leased most of the farm to our neighbor, Brother Maner, but he hadn’t been able to give up the lot. The lot was his first piece of ground, one he had bought from Grandpa when he was only 17. It had always been his prize. The best sweet corn in the whole county had been grown there. Of course, that was more a tribute to Dad than the lot itself.

Though the soil was rich, Dad seemed to harvest more rocks than anything else. There was no end to them. Soon he had piles of rocks all around the lot. But with those rocks, which anyone else would have cursed and discarded, Dad began to build a wall.

Every year he dug up more rocks, and every year he added to the wall. Building this rough, rugged wall became an art with Dad. He sighted and measured and leveled. He chose each rock carefully and set it into position with a precision that was unique to him. He met this challenge with the same zeal and meticulous care that he worked the soil, repaired his barns and fences, or performed his church duties.

There was only a hundred feet of unfinished wall when Dad learned of his leukemia. He began to joke that the Lord wouldn’t take him until he finished the wall. When Doctor Hart told him and Mom that he had between six months and a year to live, he smiled over at Mom and said, “I don’t know if I can finish the wall that soon. The Lord will have to give me some more time.”

Dad had already lived six years since then. In fact, he had outlived Doctor Hart, who had died a few months earlier of a heart attack.

When I arrived at the lot that morning, I called to Dad several times, but there was no answer. I went to the bottom of the lot where the unfinished section of wall was, hoping to find him working, but the place was deserted. I stopped and stared at the gap in the wall. There was a 20-foot unfinished section. The rocks were there in a pile, but Dad hadn’t put them in place. I smiled and thought to myself, “He knows what he’s doing. He’s going to make sure there’s always a gap in that wall. If the Lord sticks to his end of the deal, I’ll be dead before Dad.”

I set the ice water down and squatted on the ground in the shade of the wall. I closed my eyes, pressed my back against the rough but cool rocks and let my mind wander. A soothing peace prevailed as I remembered earlier days when I had come to the lot with Dad to hoe corn. I smiled. The novelty of the first spring work had always been so exciting, but the excitement soon dissipated. The sun warmed, and the plague of gnats descended. The swarming little insects had tortured me with their annoying, high-pitched whine and persistent biting. Many times I had thrown my hoe to the ground, screamed my agony, and clawed the infected air in frustrated anger. But Dad had always been there to encourage me and to wrap my itching head with his handkerchief to keep some of the gnats away. When they became unbearable, he sent me to sit in the shade while he finished my row of corn.

And there were the mornings I had followed behind him as he blazed a path through the towering stalks of corn, snapping off only the bulging mature ears and stacking them in his and my arms.

I recalled going to the lot in the spring and riding beside Dad on the tractor while he plowed, disked and harrowed the ground. I remembered trudging through the soft, black soil and lugging the myriad rocks that always found their way to the surface in the spring. I remembered watching Dad build the wall and listening to him as he told me Bible and Book of Mormon stories. I distinctly remembered the tears in his eyes when he had related stories of his own faith—the time his father had been healed, the time he had been working in the lot and had decided to go on a mission before marrying Mom, or the time on his mission when he had felt his bosom burn and had known for himself about God and the Church.

In my reverie I forgot the leukemia and the impending end. Here was complete contentment, and I suddenly longed to recapture those moments with Dad before he slipped away. I don’t remember how long I sat by the wall before deciding that Dad had already returned to the house. Finally I stood, brushed the dirt and dried weeds from my pants and left, fully expecting Dad to be waiting at the dinner table for me.

“Did Dad make it?” I asked Mom as I came into the kitchen with the jug of water still untouched.

“I thought you went to get him,” she answered.

“He wasn’t there. I waited but …”

The blood drained from her face, and I added quickly to calm her sudden fear, “But he might have walked over to Brother Maner’s to check the fence. He does that you know. I’ll go look.”

I made a pretense of calm and wanted to believe my own optimism, but an ominous gnawing in the pit of my stomach cautioned me to brace for the worst. I walked out of the house and across the yard, waiting until I had passed behind the barn and out of Mom’s sight before I broke into a sprint.

I didn’t find him. I was always thankful for that. I had often tried to imagine what I would do when I received word of Dad’s death. I had prepared myself for a phone call. I had never imagined meeting Brother Maner and discovering the dreaded truth etched on his contorted and sweating face. Even as he charged toward me, panting and red faced, I wanted to deny the obvious. Brother Maner had found him face down in the bottom pasture. He had been dead for about an hour.

The next three days were lost in a maze of confusing grief. I kept to myself and let my sorrow and disappointment fester. I didn’t want sympathy or pity. I didn’t want extended hands of comfort. I didn’t want sermons about life after death. I wanted to shake off my helplessness, grab death, strangle it, beat it with my fists.

The morning after the funeral I went down to the lot early. The sun was barely up, and the dew was thick on the grass. Dad’s corn was just beginning to push up through the soil. I walked around the lot twice, each time pausing at the unfinished portion of wall. It pulled like a giant magnet. As I stood and stared, the bitterness welled inside me, and I demanded an answer. Why did it have to be like this? Why did he have to be snatched away now with so much of his life unlived? And the wall? Why couldn’t he have finished the wall? He had eluded death so long, against such insurmountable odds. Why couldn’t he have been given a little more time?

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky that morning. The sun’s spring rays were soothing. This was Dad’s kind of day, the kind he would have chosen to work on the wall. Slowly I moved toward the pile of rocks. Picking the largest one, I staggered with it to the gaping hole in the wall and set it down. “It’s not much,” I whispered, “but I will finish the wall.”

Fighting back a growing wave of grief, I attacked the hole in the wall. I dropped every available rock inside the open section, piling them haphazardly. I didn’t care how the repair looked to anyone else; I just wanted to fill the gap in a bitter attempt to assuage my own grief.

In less than an hour I was almost finished. Panting, I stepped back and surveyed my progress. The shoddy workmanship mocked me. I wasn’t finishing Dad’s wall. I was merely filling a hole, something Dad would have never done.

I picked up a rock and hurled it against my section of the wall. I flew at the wall in frustrated rage, pulling the rocks down and throwing them aside. I ran to the house for a shovel, and when I returned to the lot, I was determined to complete the wall Dad’s way.

Taking a shovel, I cut away the sod and leveled the ground where the wall would go. The sun was climbing higher in the sky, and beads of sweat formed on my brow and upper lip. With calculating care I began choosing rocks for the wall’s foundation, this time with a meticulousness reminiscent of Dad. The larger, flatter rocks were set in place first to give the wall stability. The gaps between were filled with smaller, odd-shaped ones. It was like putting together a gigantic, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. Each gap had to be filled before another rock could be set into place. The base was broad and tapered gradually upward, the rocks above tying in and holding firm the rocks below.

When I wasn’t certain how to proceed, I studied Dad’s part of the wall, perusing his rugged pattern. He had always made it seem easy, but soon I discovered the truth. Before long my back ached and my fingers were rubbed raw and the palms of my hands were scratched and caked with dirt. I wished for a pair of gloves, but I refused to stop and run to the house for them. The sweat now poured down my face and neck and trickled from under my arms. My mouth was dry; my lips, covered with a sticky film of dirt.

My body cried for a rest, but I had become obsessed, refusing to stop for more than short breathers and pauses to survey my progress. I refused to stop even for dinner. Mom brought me a sandwich and a jug of water, which I ate and drank while I planned the next tier.

“Don’t push yourself, Robert,” she had cautioned. “It’s only a wall.”

“It’s Dad’s wall. He wanted it finished.”

“But there will be other days.”

“There were other days. I’ll finish today.” Shaking her head and pushing her fingers through her hair, she had finally turned and left me to my obsession.

Many times I rummaged through the pile of rocks, unable to find the right shape or size, and I was forced to search along the irrigation ditch for one that would fit the hole. By late afternoon I was at the brink of exhaustion. The muscles in my back and arms ached, and my clothes clung to me. My lips were chapped, and the back of my neck was scorched from hours in the sun; but I experienced an all-consuming satisfaction that eased the dull ache in my tired body. Dad’s pile of rocks had shrunk, and the final section of the wall had emerged.

Stiffly I stepped back to examine the wall. I compared my section to Dad’s. I nodded, feeling confident that no one would see a difference. Completely drained, I dropped to my knees and closed my eyes. The day’s work had purged much of the bitterness that I had allowed to poison me, and with that purging came a staggering realization. Dad had said he would stay until the wall was finished. Now, it was finished, and not even I could contend with that numbing reality.

I opened my eyes and looked at the wall. Slowly the rocks melted into a watery blur as tears filled my eyes. I tried to fight them back. I had dammed them off in angry defiance, but now there was nothing I could do to hold them back. They were painful at first, but with time they began to wash and soothe, and gradually the last traces of bitterness crumbled and dissolved in the briny flood.

Suddenly I remembered why I had come home for the weekend. I rebuked myself for not having come sooner and bridged the gap between Dad and me. I don’t know why I prayed. Since going to college and watching Dad slip away from me, prayer had been difficult and far from spontaneous, but this evening the prayer came naturally, as a comforting balm, a sincere plea for understanding, just enough to grasp and accept Dad’s passing.

It was in that troubled state of importuning that a new thought occurred to me with stunning force: I had not finished Dad’s wall. Dad’s wall had been finished long before. The wall he had labored so faithfully to build was his legacy to me, his monument built in my honor. The gap I had filled, patterning it so carefully after his, had been the beginning of my wall. I sensed that Dad had known that all along and had left this last section for me.

The tears ceased. It was as though Dad were with me once again, just as I had always remembered him. I knew then that he had not been snatched away before his time; I had just been left temporarily behind to finish mine. As I stared across the lot and observed the work of Dad’s lifetime, I knew I had many walls yet to build. Silently, I prayed that I would build as well as Dad.