SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER

He left a hole in the fabric of the world

By Julie Carter

This week the world lost yet another man whose moral fiber and character are the things this country was founded on.

You may not have known him but you know someone like him. He was a World War II veteran and actually walked guard around the very plane that dropped one of the bombs on Japan that brought an end to that dreadful war. He spoke so little of it, perhaps never quite believing the part he played in something so world impacting.

He was a quiet unassuming man who was raised up out of poverty and a back breaking way of living to seek only what he earned and accept only what was rightfully his.

His favorite moment in life was when his plow dropped into fertile ground to be followed by seed with the hope it would spring to life as a new crop of wheat. New baby calves and the smell of a long prayed for rain were part of his life cycle. He accepted life as it arrived and made the best of it on every level.

He loved a girl who became his wife and as they grew as a couple they became a family and a generation. He watched his children grow, his grandchildren arrive and his great-grandchildren cluster to the family tree.

He was the trunk of the family oak that sprouted branches far and wide and yet he remained rooted and grounded in the very core of who he was in the very beginning.

It took so little to be so much to this man of the earth. The smile of child, the buck of new born calf, a pickup that would run, a horse that would not, and the promise of a spring planting that would produce a summer harvest were things that made up the core of happiness for him.

This world has another hole in its foundational fabric and will tilt a little to one side because this man has gone to sit where streams run everlasting and wheat fields are tall and golden eternally.

I believe that those of us left behind are destined to level the field of life with the lives we lead and fill that hole with examples of the character set before us by men like this.

Their lives have to count for something beyond a name carved in a chunk of marble set before a dirt mound in a manicured field. They lived what they believed and died in peace knowing their quiet lives were all they were meant to be.

Generations after them have chased hard and fast after the very thing they so quietly and peacefully possessed in the simplicity of their living.

He now is where rains never cease to come on time and crops never fail. The sun is as life; bright and eternal.

When the tears of those left behind have soaked to the ground, when the hearts have mended enough to step back into life, and when eyes have opened again to the world around, living will resume with a heightened appreciation for life.

What better testimony to our lives than for it to make other lives better? To make others appreciate the simple things like sunsets, rainbows, and fresh turned earth.

We can only strive to leave a legacy of goodness, integrity and solid value as this man has.

Julie can be reached for comment at jcarter@tularosa.net

© Julie Carter 2005

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