In Praise of Winter Wheat

It is a gray, dreary day here. It's a little too warm for snow, so we are getting rain/mist. It's one of those days when the wiper speed is never set right. This morning I spent time with two women in their 90's. I drove one to the City to visit her daughter, who has terminal cancer. While she was visiting her daughter, I went to see Broken Neck. Broken Neck was really dragging today. She wanted to visit, and was very sharp mentally, but she kept falling asleep. She'd already exercised and cleaned up, and was worn out.

We drove home through dreary farm fields. Some were black. The farmers had completed the harvest and worked manure or lime into the ground. Some were full of brown stubble. All looked dead. It was a dreary, depressing day. Our moods seemed to match the dreary day.

Daughter had called me on my cell phone in tears, worried that Grandad didn't feel good and was headed to the hospital. I have wondered if he will survive another year, and whether we will be able to convince him to give up his apartment.

My passenger was facing the death of her daughter, and I was worried that Broken Neck will not recover sufficiently to live alone again (she is 92). But then, as we were driving along, we'd come across a field of winter wheat. In the midst of the black soil, brown stubble, and gray day, there would be a field of bright green. There would be a field of winter wheat, defiantly growing as everything else is dying. Those fields of winter wheat always lift my spirits. They remind me that in the midst of death, there is always life. They remind me that after the winter comes the spring. They remind me that there is always hope.

I was tempted to come home and curl up in a ball and fall asleep. After all, it is my day off. But I didn't. I came home and separated the meat from the bones and skin in my turkey stock, and chopped up vegetables, and there is now a huge pot of turkey rice soup simmering on my stove. I'm making a mental list of people who would benefit from some homemade soup. I'm sure I'm not the only one who needs some hope on a dreary day. I'll remember the winter wheat, and I'll take them some turkey rice soup.