I’d only been in the house for 10 or 15 minutes when my phone buzzed. I’d stepped in to grab a sandwich, or whatever I could conjure up on my own, for lunch. Although it was only in the mid-80s, it felt like an oppressively hot day. It was just a couple of weeks before the county fair, and I knew I needed to get some stuff done before fair time. Even in the best years, the fair demands more time from me than is even available, so I always have the goal to get ahead of the tsunami before the offshore earthquake hits. That noblest of intentions usually dies in the goal stage, but it’s nonetheless present every year.
It came as no surprise when I glanced at the phone and noticed my wife’s number flashing on the screen. She was making the 10-hour trip to her native country in northern Idaho to visit her ailing mother who, at the time, simply needed to feel her family’s presence. I didn’t figure my wife had reached her destination, but I assumed she’d timed her call to catch me when I might be near the house, and thus in a spot where I might have a good phone signal. Her tone wasn’t at the panic level, but I could tell it was nearing the high frustration point barely a few words into the conversation.
She was in a car she’d borrowed from her brother because ours was suffering from dead transmission syndrome. I was encouraged when she told me she was in Missoula. That indicated to me that she’d made pretty good time. The trouble was that she was at the side of the road with an empty gas tank, just 1 mile from the exit with her favorite gas station next to the place with the good huckleberry milkshakes.
The other trouble was that we were separated by about seven-and-a-half hours and 450 miles. My first inclination was to lecture her on the dangers of driving on an empty tank, but I figured she was probably fairly aware of that fact at that moment. My chiding her would do nothing to help the situation. There wasn’t much I could do to help her other than to “be there” as much as I could be with a familiar, if not exasperated, voice and spirit. Eventually, a good-hearted trucker brought her a gallon of gas and she made it to the exit. It’s not as bad as driving through Farson, Wyoming, without filling up, but from now on, I’m sure she’ll never pass Dillon or Thompson Falls without a full tank.
A few days after my wife returned home from that trip, we were gearing up for the fair. Things weren’t nearly as hectic as days gone by when we were coping with five kids and about a dozen critters as we prepared for the fair, but my duties on the fair board still required considerable time and effort. On the morning of the Ned LeDoux concert, which was the grand opening of the fair, we received a call from the hospital in north Idaho. We were advised that if we wished to talk to my wife’s mother, we needed to get there as soon as possible. It couldn’t have come at a more inconvenient time. I knew my wife could make the trip on her own, but my fellow servants on the fair board assured me they could pick up my slack for a couple of days and urged me to accompany my wife up north.
We made a quick trip up to the north country (at least as quick as one can make a southern-to-northern Idaho border run), and I made it home for seven of the nine days of the county fair. More importantly, my wife was able to say her last goodbyes to a mother who, to the best of her abilities, always made valiant efforts to be present, in whatever ways she could, for her children and their children.
Just a few days after the conclusion of the fair, we again made the northern trek to attend her funeral. It wasn’t a huge service – many of her peers had gone on before her – but the chapel was filled with family and friends who had been recipients of her presence as a nurse, neighbor, friend and mother. After the burial, and although she knew it was just a bit wide of my comfort zone, my wife took my hand and thanked me for being with her on the two long trips to honor her mother. She said it meant a lot to her that I just made the effort to be there.
I can’t remember, for sure, where I heard it, so I can’t give proper credit to the source, but I found a note I’d scribbled on the back of a brand inspection receipt as I made a weak effort to clean out the cab of my pickup. This is what I’d written: “Being listened to is so close to being loved, that to the average person, it is almost indistinguishable.”
In an age where our attention is constantly encouraged, enticed and attacked from myriad directions, I found it refreshing, as exhausting as it may have been, to spend so much time on some old-fashioned road tripping in order to do little more than offer some weak support to someone whose appreciation far outweighed the effort I put into the task. “Presence” can, I believe, be manifested in different forms, but it is perhaps one of the most valuable gifts that can be given. Presence is the medium of love. Whether it’s a shared road trip, a handwritten note, an hour taken to help clip your daughter’s steer or making it to the second half of your son’s ball game in the middle of calving season, your presence may very well be the difference that counts the most.
