There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot. Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 (NIV)
Lynn and I were born into a farm family in the midwestern United States. We have a brother, John, and growing up we also had so much more. On both mom’s side and dad’s side, we had aunts and uncles and cousins – acres and acres of cousins. Growing up, they were our best friends. They will always be our family.
Wednesday, my mom’s brother Phil passed away. Like our father and so many of our uncles and cousins, Phil was a farmer, and it’s harvest season, and as WCIA-TV reporter Erica Quednau wrote as the lead-in to her story:
They’ve been waiting months for this moment and Thursday was the day. Timing is everything to a farmer. They carefully calculate the perfect day to take out their crops. But some ignored their own fields to take care of someone else’s.
Please click this link or either of the images in this post if you can’t see the embedded video of the story.
The story’s about Uncle Phil’s farmland—400 acres of it—and how ten farmers and their families came together to harvest it on Thursday.
So why, with their own farms ready, would these men and women give up a precious day for someone else?
If you have to ask, you don’t understand the midwest.
“It’s just what people do around here, and it’s what Phil would do.”
John told Ms. Quednau that. I’ve never been more proud to be his little brother.
“I’ve known a few good men. Phil was on the top of the list.”
Our dad told Ms. Quednau that. I’ve never been more proud to be his son.
Uncle Phil would have haaaaated the fuss, but he would have been first in line to help someone else.
That’s what people do back where I’m from. That’s why—no matter where I live—it will always be home, and they will always be family.
Leave a Reply