A Thin Place
A Christmas Story by Jess Slusher
The December snow crunched brittle under his old rubber boots in the darkening afternoon. He was pleasantly surprised they still fit but that’s as much emotional warmth as he felt towards them. They had been a Christmas present one lean year. Under the tree that Christmas were two large presents with his name on them. He could remember the restless anticipation as he waited to see what the two packages contained. When the first gift revealed itself as a right rubber boot it took no imagination to realize what was in the other gift. To him they symbolized a frustrating childhood. His memories of his mother were warm and tender but it was the relationship with his father that was a question mark. Those old rubber boots of his, he wondered why his father had never thrown them away. It was probably so that when he came home from college to visit he could help his father with some of the chores. This Christmas vacation was scheduled to be one of those visits except for an unforeseen event – the sudden death of his father. His dad was found by the neighbor who had come to exchange a load of hay in payment for his monthly supply of milk. He found the old man outside of the milking barn, with milk from the dropped metal pail frozen in a puddle beside him.
His brother, the oldest of three children, lived on his own 160 acres next to the home place that he farmed with his dad. His dad wasn’t exactly farming anymore though he helped change water occasionally and fed his few remaining livestock. His work was limited by strict orders from the doctor- the doctor that happened to be his daughter and second oldest child. The three of them buried their father next to their mother who had passed ten years before. Now, five days after his father’s funeral it was Christmas Eve, and time again for the afternoon milking. Bess was waiting.
Bess was a Guernsey. He had purchased her for a 4-H project years before when he was in high school. When it came time to show her and then auction her at the county fair his father was highest bidder. “She’ll make a good milker, Robby.” His father told him. This surprised him since it had been years since they milked any cows. They had sold their last milk cow when his mother became ill. It was too much to milk twice a day when a day’s work also meant school and caring for his mother. “That’ll be nice, huh Robby? Fresh milk again.” He realized his father’s plan was for him to eventually milk the cow after she calved.
The door of the barn creaked open and the smell of Bess’ stall met him. Most people wouldn’t understand but that warm bovine smell was comforting. The lantern squeaked and jangled as he took it down from its peg and lit the wick. He sighed as he looked at the kerosene flame. Just like his dad to have no electricity in this part of the barn. “What do we need an electric light for? Can you carry a light bulb around while you’re out here at night. Even a flashlight doesn’t give a person light all around. And when your hands are cold you can warm them by the lantern. Bess sure appreciates it. Can’t do that with a flashlight can you, Robby?” “Sure can’t, Dad.” He’d replied. Brief snapshots of conversations he’d had with his father popped continually into his head.
It had fallen to him to go through his Dad’s things and put aside whatever he felt was significant for the others. His brother was busy bringing in a late grain corn harvest. The cold weather had finally brought the right conditions for drying and he had a leased circle yet to harvest. His sister was busy with her medical practice and two small children. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to help sort her father’s possessions but it was difficult for her to take much time off during the flu season from the only clinic that served their farming community. So it remained up to Rob, the life-long student, now pursuing his masters in Medieval history, to put things in order.
He set the lantern down and Bess emerged from the shadows, great brown eyes glinting in the lamp light. He cut the wire off of a bale of hay with a pair of wire cutters that must have been his grandfathers. “What do we need a new pair of cutters for? Those work perfectly good. Besides, there’s beauty in those old tools, son. ‘Builds character.” His dad used the word “character” every time Rob had suggested the possibility of any kind of improvement that could make life easier.
“Here ya go, Bess,” he murmured, tossing the hay into the feed trough. He patted her shoulder and scratched under her neck vigorously, something that he had done since she was a calf. He ran his hand along her back and down her flank, feeling the warmth and smoothness of her coat. He patted her rump and she shifted her rear side while turning to look at him. Rob took the milking stool from its perch on the post at the back of the stall. That stool was another character building antique that he had learned to endure. The milking stool was made from two pieces of wood: the first was a seat cut from portion of beam carved to conform to a milker’s backside. Either that or it had just worn a “butt rut” from decades of use. Its surface reflected the light of the lantern in a brilliant gloss created by four generations of backsides. Fitted to the bottom of the seat was a single leg that allowed the milker to easily pivot and maneuver.
The milking stool had a story of its own. It was one of the few items that still survived the family’s move from Holland. His grandfather had brought that stool with him when he immigrated. It had originally belonged to his great grandfather who made it and adorned one side with a carving. His father had claimed it was a tulip while his mother contended it was a clover. He looked at it in the amber light of the lantern to see if he could discern exactly what it was. It was chip carved with angular cuts made by the tip of a knife that left a flower in relief. Very masterful, even if they could not tell what kind of flower it was. Without looking he knew that on the underside of the stool was carved the name of his great grandfather, and his grandfather and his father. “Each generation passes on this stool to the champion of the next,” his father said proudly pointing to his own name carved there by his father.
Bess snorted a bit and turned to look at him again, chewing, waiting. Rob warmed his hands by the lantern. “Dad said that you appreciated this, Bess.” He patted her back and set himself down on the stool, placing the metal milk bucket under her. Soon the rhythmic sound of the milk hitting the side of the bucket cast a spell over the stall. Rob leaned his head into Bess’ flank and felt her warmth on his brow…and he remembered.
He remembered when he was a small boy, his Dad behind him, teaching him how to milk, his strong arms around him, the roughness of unshaven stubble against his cheek. “Like this, Robby, like this.” His father’s hands over his as they squeezed and released streams of warm milk. That memory defined his father. He was always a mentor, always a teacher. It was a joy and an adventure when he was little, but as he grew older Rob felt that he would never stop being the pupil, that he would always be the student and never mature to be a man. His older brother rebelled against his father’s tutelage and though they farmed together the closeness they once shared faded to an awkward but respectful relationship. Yet his father often praised his brother for his determination and desire to build a life from the land. Eventually his brother bought the neighbors place and had a farm of his own.
His sister was the family star. “Carrie was born counting her toes,” his father often claimed. This was how he described her proficiency in math. This same ability earned her a college scholarship and a doctorate in family medicine. It was this achievement that his father often talked about while visiting with friends and family.
But for Rob there seemed to be no such approval. Was his father unhappy that he had not wanted to take over the farm? Surely that was for his older brother. Did he think that teaching history was a waste of one’s life? Bess’s flank quivered and she stomped a back foot. Rob released his grip and rocked back on the stool. “There, Bess,” he said softly, stroking her tawny coat.
What happens when our thoughts become so deeply rutted that they continually transport us to the same memories and feelings? For this was the landscape that Rob always arrived at as if beyond his control, those feelings of emptiness, the want not of his father’s love but of his father’s approval. Was ‘approval’ the right word? He was looking for his father’s respect, the sense of destiny that comes with the passing of the baton of manhood. It was a sense of worth he was looking for, knowing that what he was doing had value and purpose. As a student had he ever won the “well done” of his father, the teacher? It was the ‘not knowing’ that was the point of his frustration.
Rob buried his forehead into Bess’ flank once again and began to milk. The sound of the rhythm had changed. The stream was no longer hitting the bell of the bucket but the milk had risen to half full, frothing with each warm jet from Bess.
“Watch this, Robby,” his dad whispered in his ear while he was teaching him to milk. He aimed the teat toward the back of the stall where sat three farm cats waiting in fixed expectation. With an expert hand his father directed several squirts hitting the cats muzzles and the chests. “Everybody on the farm enjoys milking the cow, huh Robby?” They both laughed as the satisfied and purring cats licked each others coats.
“I wish…” Bess turned and looked at Robby, his cheek laying against her side, her flank wetted by his tears, “God…I wish I knew how he really felt.” Her deep brown eye met his and looked into him. Words that were never said and needed to be heard were the gulf that still separated him from his father and from his own sense of self worth. Robby turned his attention again to his work, filling the pail. He placed the bucket behind him and deftly lifted the stool as he stood. It was then he noticed a change in the familiar feel of the stool as his fingers touched the bottom. The smooth cadence of names had changed. A sick feeling struck him as he thought that perhaps the generational heirloom had been damaged, that he might have gouged the carefully carved names of his ancestors on the pegs that held it between milkings. He took the stool over to the lantern to get a better view of the damage.
In Medieval history great men of God and Christian mystics in Celtic lands talked of “thin places” where the veil that separates heaven and earth becomes so thin that eternity spills into time and the light of glory floods for one brief moment into the dark realm of the present. Some thin places are found on pilgrimage when men seek God in desperation. Some are found when God seeks desperate men and brings revelation. Some like the shepherds on the night of the Savior’s birth and like this grieving son on a late winter afternoon find a “thin place” in a common stable.
In the half light of the lantern what Rob saw with his physical eyes opened the eyes of his heart. He understood. An eternal moment opened for him a destiny and he understood. He understood that from his father came his love of history. He realized his father loved the old tools and the milking stool because they connected his father with his past, with his father and grandfather and gave him a legacy to pass to the next generation. In that moment of glory even those old rubber boots took on the warmth of heaven, and now he knew. The real reason the boots and Bess had been kept so carefully was because they connected his father to his youngest son. They connected his father to him!
“Each generation passes on this stool to the champion of the next…” his dad had told him. There in the light of the amber lantern and under the attentive eye of God and Bess, on the bottom of the stool, Robby saw the words that had never been spoken. For there in the cadence of champions he saw his own name, carved by his father’s hand.
