We’ve been waiting for word that R.’s neighbor H. has passed. He’s been in hospice for the last few weeks after several on and off stays in the hospital. The last time he went, he and his family were told that H needed to go into a nursing home. Instead, H. decided to come home and die on his own terms.
H. was one of the first people in R’s life that I met. R. and I were working out in his grove cleaning out tallow trees and cutting down dead wood 5.5 years ago. We started working on the tree shown below and we managed to get the chain on the chainsaw stuck between the tree trunk and the stump. R. got the chainsaw apart and the blade out easily. But the tree was held in place by grapevines in the upper branches and was perfectly balanced upright on the trapped chainsaw chain. R and I had to leave the tree where it was because it was too dark to safely do anything.
When we awoke the next morning, we found the tree down and pulled a distance away from the stump. H. had put a chain around the trunk, and used his ancient tractor to pull the tree down so so it wouldn’t fall on the electrical wires on his property or hurt anyone. I liked the fact that H told R “I was a keeper because I worked hard.”
The ancient tractor H had was the subject of much laughter between R and myself. Every once in awhile, R would go over and work on the tractor and keep it running for H. R would come over and grumble about how the tractor leaked like a sieve but H. insisted it would still keep going. We’d come back to R’s place every once in a while and find the fence line mowed. H’s repayment for R’s services.
The tractor episode I heard the most about was right after Hurricane Ike came through. H had a limb caught in a tree. and R got into the front loader with his chainsaw on a stick (a.k.a. the telescoping chainsaw). R. had to stand at the end of the front loader, on his tiptoes, with the chainsaw fully extended to get the branch down.
I will miss the across the fence conversations with H and his wife. They are good people and H will be missed by R. and myself.
ETA: R told me that H passed at 3 AM this morning.
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