I finished cleaning the kitchen yesterday and put away the canning paraphernalia for a few days, then headed to the farm. My Uncle “Dudley” was going to be there by 4:00 to cut up the limbs on the tree that came down and fix a few things, so I wanted to be there and have an apple pie baking in the oven when he arrived. I pulled into the drive and…there he was. Well, his truck was there. And the limbs were all cut and moved. I put the cooler in the kitchen and went to look for him.

The barn door was open so I knew he was happily rummaging around…seeing what he might find. I heard him humming as I walked up from the house.

“Uncle Dudley!” I called out to him.

“Virginia Lynne!” He hollered back. 

“I thought you said you were going to be here at 4:00.” I gave him my sternest frownie face, which never fooled him.

“And so I shall!”

“You stinker…I was going to have a pie coming out of the oven when you walked in the door, but you ruined the whole thing!” I laughed at him and so wanted to get the big bear hug I always get when we see each other.

His name is Gerald, but they call him Bud. “Buddy Boy” when he was growing up. He was in high school when I was born…my mother’s youngest brother. There’s only him and one sister left of the six children….the first stillborn. My mom was the oldest. So we are only about fifteen years apart. The same distance between my two daughters. 

I’ve always felt a kindred spirit with my uncle. I am mechanically minded and he loved to teach me how to do things when I was growing up. I’ve learned so much from him. He looks exactly like my Pop Pop and he makes me smile. Always.

As I sat in my grandma’s chair peeling Granny Smith apples for the pie, the electric was off and he was on the porch working. Sometimes he’d go downstairs to look for a tool or stop for a drink. But while he worked, he hummed a tune. Soft and low. I couldn’t make it out at first. Then, suddenly…I recognized it.

Rock of Ages.

My mind immediately swept me back to my childhood to a hot summer Sunday, fresh home from church. Grandma sitting in this very spot, peeling potatoes for supper. Or maybe stringing beans or shucking corn. I would sit on a little stool beside her and “help”. She told me stories and we talked about what I learned in Sunday school. And, in the silence in between, she would softly hum Rock of Ages as she worked the paring knife with deft precision.

I smiled with the memory as I came back to the present. My uncle is in his early eighties now. I put the pie in the oven and walked out to join him, wiping my hands on a dishtowel. We grabbed a cold drink and sat down to cool off on the front porch. There, we sat for a good hour, softly talking about this and that. Mostly about our mutual love for the farm. He would sell the farm to me…and I would buy it in a heartbeat. If I were only thirty years younger and it didn’t need so much work. The water isn’t good for anything but cleaning. The next tree that falls could take the house with it. It’s got pretty good bones, but it’s the original metal roof from a hundred years ago. No…I would just be borrowing trouble if I bought the old place. As long as he lives, I will still have access to the place. I know my time there is finite.

My cousins came over. Mr. FixIt got there after Physical Therapy. We got the electric back on. I fed the boys. We all had pie on the front porch and sat till long after dark telling stories. We said our Appalachian goodbyes…

“Welp…I’d better be gittin’ on.”

“Are you sure I can’t get you a piece of pie?”

“Oh, no…I’m fine. Hey, did I tell you about…………..”

Twenty minutes later, there’s a lag in the conversation.

“Ok, I really gotta git.”

“Oh, hey…have you ever heard that story about………. Honey, you tell him. You tell it so much better than me.”

Thirty minutes later…..

You get my drift.

I showed my uncle where to turn on the dehumidifier when he leaves today. I asked him to turn off the water at the toilet and turn on the front porch light. And don’t forget to lock up. I left him the rest of the pie.

“I’d hug you…but I can’t.”

He smiled that smile…Pop Pop’s smile…and winked. “I wish you could too, shug.”

*Shug…short for sugar. Grandma always called her loved ones, shug. She also called me Pet.”

I climbed in the truck and backed out on the country lane and toot-tooted the horn as I pulled away. I turned off the AC and rolled down the windows. I smiled as I felt the warm velvet night air and hummed…

Rock of Ages, cleft for me…let me hide myself in Thee…

It was a very good day.

❤️

“All of them also ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink, which flowed from the spiritual rock that followed them. That rock was Christ.”

1 Corinthians 10:3-4 CEV