A quote: “Sometimes as a parent, you have to give your child that doesn’t do his or her chores some tough love and withhold the allowance.” ~~ Ami Bera
I’ll start with a story …
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To be honest, as a child I really resented washing dishes.
We had a dishwasher at home, but when I was sent to spend a month of summer vacation at my grandparents’ it was nothing but a sink of hot, soapy water, a scrub brush, and me.
They lived a few states away, on a farm that had been in the family for several generations. They might be the last since Dad had taken up a briefcase rather than a tractor and I wasn’t feeling too fond of the life either.
But a couple of summers and I got into the routine – clear table, wash, dry, put away, then join them on the porch for iced tea.
It changed some the first summer after grandma passed. Grandpa joined me in the kitchen, to dry and put away. Awkward at first, but grandpa started sharing stories of growing up, the world back then, and time flew.
College brought the month at the farm to stop.
I was struggling my second year, classes felt empty, and I broke up with my girlfriend. I must have sounded miserable on the phone because a few days after I talked with him, I opened the door to find grandpa.
He cooked dinner for me, washing up the dishes later (including the pile I’d left, too wallowing in self-pity to bother), making iced tea and sitting on the couch, in the quiet, waiting for me to talk.
And I did.
It was everything I needed. I hugged him when he left, “Thanks, grandpa. I love you.”
“Love you, too, boy.”
It was just a couple of months later mom called to say grandpa had passed away in his sleep.
After the funeral, I stood on the porch where I spent so many summer evenings after the dishes were done. I listened to the windsong of the trees and the corn and remembered not just the dish washing, but the love.
And decided the farm would have at least one more generation in the family.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license.
Cameron says: I made it to my son’s house the day after the funeral. He was still in disbelief at everything that had happened and I was determined that he would not be alone.
“I vacuumed the living room,” I said quietly. “Cleaned up the garage as well.” He nodded his thanks and stared into his glass of whiskey.
Standing up, I said “I’ll take care of the dishes in the sink. Do you-“
“No!” he said, his face showing alarm.
“Son. It’s fine. I can clean things up.”
“Dad, please. Not now. She was cleaning them when…” a shudder hit his body and he leaned forward.
“If you clean the dishes and put them away, then it’s real. She’s gone and never coming back.” I sat back down and he looked at me in shame. “I’m sorry. I know I’m being foolish.”
“There is no timeline on grief. If you want to leave them there, then do that. I’ll respect that.”
It took two weeks. All I know is that one evening, the dishes were put away and he was setting the table.
“It’s what she was cooking the last time. Care to join me?”
“Yes. And I’ll clean up in return.”
I still remember Grandma’s stories of going out every morning to help her mother gather eggs, and helping hoe the garden during summer break. Back in those days, a spread of three or four hundred acres could still support a family — but about the time she hit high school, Great-grandpa and Great-grandma got caught in the big farm shake-out of the 80’s, where you either got big or got out.
Great-grandpa tried hard to get more land, but when there’s only so much to go around, someone’s got to lose out. He probably had it better than a lot of people, since he’d had experience working a town job before he took over the farm. He didn’t struggle as much as some with the idea of working to a clock — but the loss of independence still hurt, and Grandma always had a big of longing for living at the end of a long lane, where “in public” didn’t start at the front door.
So I was excited when I overheard my folks talking about taking the Kitties’ offer to settle one of their frontier worlds and have their own farm. A whole world where every speck of land wasn’t already spoken for, where we could have the acreage to be commercially viable — and the equipment to do it right. It wasn’t going to be Little House on the Prairie hand-felled log cabin with the winter wind coming in through the cracks.
However, it wasn’t quite all the modern conveniences we were used to. Sure, we have electricity and indoor plumbing, with a sanitary drilled well. But whoever designed the fold-out modules that snapped together to build our farmhouse didn’t think to include a dishwasher in the appliance suite that went into it. Maybe it’s just because the Kitties are obligate carnivores, so they don’t go through near as many dishes in a meal as omnivores like. us humans, who need vegetable matter for good health.
Whatever reason, I’m getting way too much experience with a chore I thought we’d left behind. At least I get rubber gloves, so my fingers don’t turn all wrinkly from being in the dishwater. But to be completely honest, I much prefer going out to the twenty huge broiler houses every morning and evening to check all the systems are A-OK to ensure the chickens we’re raising under contract to the Quartermaster-General’s Office are growing nice and plump to feed the fighting forces in the war against the xenocidal Tchiador.
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