A couple of days before Thanksgiving Chuck called to tell me he got a big roasting hen from the food bank. He wanted to cook it on his wood stove. Maybe I could whip up some potatoes and dressing and come over and we could have a feast. Plus, I could bring over some music. He wants to hear something different. Wow. I was delighted. So I made mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, zucchini bread. I picked out five CDs. I chose some soft guitar, some jazz, all instrumental stuff.
We had a pleasant time cooking together. He told me when I first arrived to not bring up any relationship issues; we would just talk about simple things like the weather and what was going on in the world, and food. The food was fabulous. It really was a feast. I had my first experience of cooking on a wood stove.
When we sat down to eat he said, “Let's hear what music you brought.” I put on Jesse Cook. We listened for a few seconds and he said, “No, I don't like that.” So I put on another, and got the same response. We went through all five and decided to just dine in silence. Afterward, I took all the dishes home to wash. Oh well.
A few days later the snow started to fall. And fall. I've never seen so much snow. It's beautiful, of course, but day-um, that's a lot of shoveling. My driveway is about 50' long. Chuck had been using that same driveway all this time and had always kept it shoveled
out for me before he moved out here. But now there is also a back way to get to his trailer, which is about 150' long. He started using and shoveling that route instead. He never touched my driveway now.
He did, though, come over one time while I was shoveling to tell me how to shovel easier. He taught me lots of tricks, like shoveling out a path away from the driveway and you put your snow in a toboggan, pull it down the path and dump it there. That way you don't end up with huge piles on the side of the driveway. He told me that if the snow is deep to take the top half off first, then the bottom. It is twice as many movements but what you're lifting is much lighter, so you're less likely to hurt yourself. He showed me how to push, cut and bank it, too. He told me to stop frequently and just look around and enjoy the view. There's no need for it to be a hard chore.
So, I kept my driveway shoveled and I also opened a foot path between the house and the trailer. Mid-December he called me and said that since I had a path open I should come over and bring some beer. He had something to tell me. I went over.
“For weeks I've been searching online and making phone calls and I finally just found out today, Bernie died.”
“What? No! How?”
“Don't know. All I can find out is that they found him in his apartment a couple months ago. He'd been dead for a while. I tried to find a police report but can't get any real information. Are you crying?”
“Well, yeah. I loved Bernie, he was such a gentle soul. I'll never forget the times we spent together. I always think of him when I use my bread board.”
We commiserated for a bit, then he said, “I'd like to find out who got his trailer and boat. They should have been mine. His sister probably got everything. You know how much he hated her. And I was his best friend.”
I decided it was time to call it a night and go home.
Just before Christmas he emailed and told me to go and spend it at Phil's, like I always had. He expected to be going to the Cline's, like he had for the past 2 years. I don't know what he ended up doing, but I went to Phil's for Christmas and stayed home on New Year's Eve. I bought a nice bottle of wine and listened to some of my favorite music. Ellen called. She was home alone that night, too. We had a delightful chat.
The next day Chuck showed up at my door. He brought me a big bucket full of sand to
sprinkle around outside so the ice wouldn't be so deadly slippery. We ended up spending the night together, holding each other in our shared sorrow for all that had been lost that year, 2007. After that we both became very solitary. I started spending more time at the computer.
