Patterns of Swallows (53 page)

"Because
I asked him not to. I wanted to keep it as a surprise."

"Bo!
You're not serious! You don't mean ..."

"I
do mean."

Ruth
wasn't a squealer typically, but what followed could only be
described as a squeal. With nothing half-hearted about it, either.
And she threw herself at Bo to hang off his neck.

"Well!"
he said.

"I'd
been saving for the perfect piece of land someday," he explained
after Ruth had regretfully let go of his neck. "If this isn't
it, I don't know what would be. The timing of it all was a little
suspicious, don't you think? Almost as though some divine hand was
in it all maybe? I know how much you love this land. You know I've
always wanted to own my own orchard someday. Don't you think the
acres I bought from Johnny would be ideal for putting in apples,
maybe some cherries? Maybe a few peaches?"

"I
think it would make an ideal orchard," she agreed in a voice
scarcely above a whisper.

"Wanna
go exploring my new land with me?" he asked. "Our land, I
mean."

"
Our
land?" Ruth said.

"You
think I bought it just so we could be next-door neighbours?"

"How
am I supposed to know why you bought it?" Ruth asked
mischievously. "You haven't told me why you bought it. Other
than because it would make ideal orchard land. What's that got to do
with me?"

"Oh,
come on, Ruth. We don't need to play games with each other. You
know what it's got to do with you."

"And
if I do, Mr. Weaver, don't you think a girl likes to hear it in
words? To be asked even? Rather than to have her answer assumed. I
don't think it's playing games to do a little asking. And a little
waiting for an answer."

"You
know I'm not much of a hand with fancy words ..."

"Now,
don't give me that old line. They don't have to be fancy words. You
don't have to be a mighty orator to ask a simple question. Besides,
you can be a very good hand with words when you want to be."

"But
you know how much I ... and we both ... I told you I'm not much of a
hand with words."

"Yes,
you told me already."

"This
isn't going very well, is it?"

Ruth
laughed with pure joy. Where did this terrible streak of cruelty in
her come from that delighted to see her beloved squirming like an
insect stuck through with a pin? She relented and removed the pin.

"It's
going just fine. I know you're not much of a hand with words."

Bo
never did manage to phrase the question to his own satisfaction.
Ruth didn't hold it against him.

In
later years, it became the oldest running joke of their marriage, the
fact that he never quite got around to proposing.

"Maybe
this year you can propose to me for our anniversary," she'd
tease. And he'd say, "I'm still looking for the right words.
I'm not much a hand with words, y'know." And they'd laugh. It
was astonishing how many years, year after year, they could still
find the same joke humorous.

But
that day, the day Bo never quite got around to proposing, they spent
the majority of the day exploring
their
new land rather than wasting their precious time together in looking
for the right words to state what was already obvious to both.
Instead, they made practical plans as they walked.

"We'll
keep on living in your farm house, of course. I mean, if that's what
you want. Do you?"

"How
well you know me! Yes, I'd like that. Don't go building me any
palaces."

"And,
of course, your mother-in-law will always have a home with us. I
hope she knows that. I owe her more than I'll ever be able to
repay." He grinned down at Ruth.

"I
hope she knows it, too. I hope she doesn't start talking silly about
going to live with her daughter again when she hears about you and
me."

"Well,
make sure you tell her the next time you see her that we want her to
live with us."

"And
your mother, too."

"She'll
probably stay on in her own home for now with three of the kids still
living at home. She's doing fine financially now, thanks to you. We
can help support the kids, though, of course. Some might want to go
to college."

"And
what about adopting Gabe if we can?"

"Of
course!"

When
all the pressing arrangements for their future together had been
made, they stopped by the old hay shed to watch the barn swallows
building a nest in the eaves. Their swooping and soaring traced dark
patterns in the blue of the sky.

"Don't
knock their nests down, okay, Bo?"

"I
wouldn't!" He sounded shocked.

"A
lot of farmers do. They think they're messy. It doesn't do any good
though. They just keep coming back to the same old spot. They have
persistence."

"Stubbornness,
you mean," he said, teasing her and pulling her into his side
with one arm. "Not unlike someone else I know."

"You
think I'm stubborn?" she asked him seriously.

"I
think you're the very model of uncompromising faithfulness," he
answered her just as seriously.

"In
other words, stubborn. So much for you not being much of a hand at
fancy words," her serious mood was gone.

But
Bo's wasn't.

"You
can't be knocked down, either. Some may call it stubbornness. Let
'em. What do we care? I call it unchangingness. And other than
that one exception for which I will be eternally grateful, I love
your unchangingness. A fellow will always know where he's at with
you. One of the many things I love about you."

"Not
bad for a man who's not much of a hand at words."

"You
inspire me, I guess." They laughed together from sheer delight.

"They
almost fly as if they had a flight plan to follow, don't they?"
Ruth said, turning her eyes back to the birds. "I wonder if
their flight plan has a pattern they can see from the sky that we
can't see from earth. Beautiful, aren't they? Funny, too, when you
consider how ugly they are when they begin life. But in flight, they
sure are beautiful to watch. I've always thought there's almost
nothing more beautiful than a swallow in flight."

"Almost
nothing," Bo said, but he wasn't looking at the birds.

Watching
the birds but not really thinking about them any longer, Ruth mused,
"Beauty from ugliness. That's the pattern, even in nature.
That's what redemption really is, isn't it? There's only one Person
who could do that work. '... beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for
mourning ...' "

"
'He hath made everything beautiful in his time ...' " Bo quoted
softly. And he still wasn't looking at the birds.

*
* *

Ruth
and Bo were married just shy of forty years. Besides Gabriel, Ruth
and Bo raised four children of their own: three fine, God-fearing
boys and one girl who is very much like her mother and now a close
friend of mine as well.

Naomi
MacKellum, Ruth's first mother-in-law, never remarried and lived with
the Weaver family until she died four years ago at the age of
ninety-two. She outlasted Ruth who died two years before her when
cancer returned to take her home.

We
all knew, especially Ruth herself knew, when the cancer came back the
second time that it was her time.

Bo
continues to grieve in his quiet way, but he looks forward to seeing
her again in that place where cancer can never enter and death has no
more power to separate.

*
* *

Much
has been written on the topic of innocence corrupted. The perception
of the masses is that corruption follows doggedly and inevitably on
the heels of innocence like a wolf on the heels of a lamb. Literary
works written on sordid themes abound and fail to shock by the very
number in existence. And, in fact, the corruption of innocence in
life is so commonplace as to hardly need the commentary of art –
which exists, surely, not only to show us what is but what could be.
To show us not only what is ordinary but what is extraordinary.

I
read a story-poem once about a young girl in Italy who goes about
singing on her one day of holiday in the year. And as she passes
through the midst of the corruption of her surroundings (to which she
is oblivious), her surroundings are altered. Through her innocent
singing, a window is given her listeners on life as it could be.
Corruption is seen for what it is. Momentous decisions are made.
Destinies are decided. There is a power in innocence.

The
beauty of ignorant innocence is a theme I prefer to that of the
squalor of corrupted innocence.

But
I've always wanted to write a different kind of a work. A work about
the beauty of true goodness. The beauty of goodness with its eyes
wide open – to know the corruption of its surroundings. Yet
which goes on being goodness in spite of the surrounding corruption.
A goodness which chooses the good in spite of whatever the rest of
the world may choose. There, I believe, is a theme worth
immortalizing as being something above the commonplace.

And
for those who insist that art should be merely the reflection of
life, not its sculptor, let me say that I have written what I know.
To find such a quality as goodness from life may be extraordinary,
but it is not impossible.

Yet
we're assured by the authority on the subject that there is none good
but God. For lives of goodness such as I have described, there is
only one explanation. One's own goodness is not, could never be, the
source of the extraordinary goodness some lives display.

*
* *

I've
told you that I am my own main character, and that is true. Though I
prefer to avoid centre stage, I am my own main character. And
because you, of necessity, have seen this story through my eyes, I,
of necessity, have also become your main character while we travelled
this road together for a time.

There
are those who say one can never know the truth about anything. It's
true that things are not always what they seem. Still, there's a
truth about them regardless of whether everyone can see it.

I've
revealed myself to you on two different levels. You've been able to
see me through the eyes of the world at large. Yet, you've also come
to know the secret me of which the world at large knows nothing.

I
know the townspeople have always thought of me as slow. Because I
failed grade nine arithmetic three times (I've never had a head for
numbers) and because I have a hard time keeping my attention on a
task and because I've never known how to act around people or what to
say to them, the general tendency is to assume there must be
something wrong with my mind.

But
the truth is, I see things other people don't. When you spend your
time as an observer of life rather than a participant, you get to see
things. You begin to learn the art of knowing people.

And
I believe I knew Ruth as well as anyone.

Her
life looked ordinary by the common standards. She didn't achieve any
greatness that the world calls greatness. And yet, she was a great
lady.

As
people have said, she was my only real friend. Apart from my mother,
that is.

Mother
goes on living. We continue to look after each other. At
ninety-eight, she's still sound of mind – as clear as a bell.
And she's in good health though in a wheelchair. But I know time
will have its way with her before long. When she goes, I know I'll
be utterly alone.

I
fear that time. But perhaps I won't outlive her by many years. If
at all.

I
know what people will say after I'm dead.

"Poor
old Philippa. What a life she led! It wasn't much of a life, was
it?"

But
I hope you'll remember that things are not always what they seem.