Closure

Now... I'm going to tell you a story...   It has several events in it that will make you stop and say... "Johnny's making this up."  I promise you I am not. I will place my hand on a Bible and swear to it.

When I was growing up there lived an old Negro man who lived alone in a run down farmhouse just behind our house on the property adjacent to us... He lived a very simple life and kept mostly to himself...  As a young teenager I would pass through his field, with his permission, on my way back to a creek that flowed about a mile back in the woods to go fishing.

 On the way back  from the creek, I would find him sitting on his front porch listening to a old radio that sat just inside the window in his bedroom.  For him to hear it, it was pretty loud.  Sometimes I would stop and show him what I caught or just sit on the porch with him and watch the sun set, then head on to our house that was maybe 200 yards away, still being able to hear his radio.. Right after dark the radio would be turned off and he would go to bed with his house in complete darkness.


A couple of years later, I came home from work late one evening about 10 pm... As I got out of my car I notice that I could hear his radio still playing, which was odd for that time of night.  I glanced towards his house and also noted that it was deep dark with no lights on.  I went in and shared with my father that the old man's radio was still playing that late at night.  He too though that was odd and asked me to go with him to check on the old man...

It was a Full Moon night so there was no need for flashlights so we walked down his road. Approaching the porch, we could make out him sitting, leaning back against the old bench he usually sat on. Dad called out to him but there was no answer. It looked as though he had probably had a heart attack and tried to get up, sliding off the bench and coming to rest leaning back against the bench.  He had died from the attack.  Dad covered him with a sheet from inside and called the Sheriff Department and we sat and waited for them. I sat and thought about our talks and how it always seemed he let me do most of the talking, while he had just sat looking out over his land and listening to me rattle on.

I moved from home soon afterwards, right after high school, I stepped into a marriage which gave me my first child.  After 3 years, my wife and I started drifting apart, which occurs sometimes when couples marry very young.

During the last month of my marriage I started to have a dream.  In the dream, I would be coming home to my parents house just I had years before.  As I got out of my car I would see the old man standing at the fence line that stood between our properties.  I would walk over and talk with him and he would ask me about my day.  Then he would look over my shoulder towards my parent's house and ask how my wife and daughter was? I would turn to look to see what he was looking at and as I did I would hear him say. "Go to your them,  Johnny, they needs you." I would turn back to ask him what he meant and he would no longer be standing there.  It was only then in the dream would I realize that he was not there because he had died years ago, and I would wake up from the dream.

My wife and I separated but I had custody of my Daughter.  We battled through court  over the custody of my daughter and near the final hearing over custody I had the same dream again about the old man.  But this time when he looked towards my parents house, he asked me about my Daughter? Again I looked away towards their house and he told me "Go to her Johnny, your daughter, she needs you." Turning around, he again would be gone and I would realize that he had passed away. I lost custody of my daughter, and fought with myself for the next 2 years over losing her.

Then, I again had the dream. but this time the old man asked "How I was doing?" and I would wake up from the nightmare not letting myself turn back around to see him gone again. It was then that
I lost myself  for 2 years into a world of denial, self-hate and total lack of self-respect and tried to carry the whole world down with me.

Fortunately I found my way into the Navy and regained control of my life and my future.

So.  hmmm..

38 years later, I sat down in a dentist chair here in Lake Charles, La.  On the wall of the room hung a painting and when I looked at it, I realized that it was a painting of the old man's home almost exactly.  The only difference was that the tree in the painting had Spanish Moss hanging from it which we had none in Central Texas.

I sat and stared at the painting and then noticed that it was signed and dated but I could not tell the whole date from the distance which I sat.  But I could see that it was 197_.  I could not force myself to get up and look and only when the Dentist came in did I dare ask him to tell me what the year of the painting was.  He walked over and squinted then said... "I think it's 1978."

The year that the Old Man had come to see me along the fence line for the last time was 1978....

It makes you wonder...

But I'm good with it.  Because now,  I think I have total closure and I don't have to worry about ever seeing the Old Man again and now when I think of him I can smile, and remember him as a the friend he once had been, a long time ago.

Johnny