Wayland

The Book of Ron · 17 of 48 · 4 minute read

When I was thirteen years old, I was allowed to move away from home. I got a job as a herdsman on a dairy farm. My agreement was simple — I would give my father my paycheck, and I could stay away as long as I wanted.

Still, I came home regularly to visit and talk.

By that time, Mom was caring for an older gentleman named Wayland. She was paid to look after him, but she didn’t really invest herself in him. Most days he just sat on the front porch, head bent forward, hands resting in his lap, quiet. No one talked to him. He hardly spoke at all.

When I would come home and see him sitting there, sometimes I’d pull up a bucket and sit beside him.

At first there would be silence.

Four or five minutes of slow, steady conversation. Nothing dramatic. Just small words. Simple encouragement. Waiting.

Sooner or later, he would lift his head. He would wipe his mouth. And he would begin to talk.

He told stories from long ago. He and his father digging a well. How they fabricated a ladder to climb down inside. How they hauled buckets of dirt up in the heat of summer. How good that water tasted when the well was finished and they lowered the bucket down and cranked it back up.

He talked about a mule he used to plow the fields. About rope and twine and weaving. About building things with his hands. About working barefoot. About hard days and simple rewards.

What struck me most wasn’t just the stories. It was the tone. There was compassion in his voice. Respect for his father. Gratitude for work. His life had been full — full of labor, yes — but also full of love.

It never came easily. It always took patience to draw him out. Encouragement. Waiting. Understanding.

I’m not sure what his affliction was. I’m not even certain he was fully aware of me at first. But eventually he would realize someone was there — someone listening — and he would speak.

What is inevitable is that we all grow old. Time affects us mentally and physically. To reach that stage and have no one beside you is tragedy.

I never could get Wayland to talk about spiritual things. At that age, I didn’t understand much myself. I knew only what Aunt Gladys had shared with me. I didn’t push him.

But the man touched my heart.

Not sympathy. Empathy.

He had lived a full life. He just had no one there at that moment.

He was lonely.

I am sixty-eight years old now.

I have left much of my past behind me. I am divorced. I am away from my grandchildren, who mean everything to me. In many ways, I am starting life over.

Sometimes I sit quietly and wonder if I will become a Wayland. If I will end up on a porch somewhere, alone, head bent forward, waiting for someone to pull up a bucket and sit beside me.

That thought can be frightening.

We all have a destiny at the end. We know not what it is.

But I also know this — when I was thirteen years old, I could have walked past that porch.

I did not.

And maybe that matters more than I understand.

Even now, once or twice a year, I go to a nursing home. I don’t impose. I just sit where they gather and try to talk with someone. None of them are Wayland.

But I remember what it felt like to sit beside him.

Maybe the kindness you give away is not lost. Maybe it circles back in ways you cannot see. Maybe the investment you make in someone else’s loneliness becomes company for you in your own.

I cannot control how my story ends.

But I can control whether I walk past the porch.

As you read this, search your own heart. Invest in people while you can.

One day, you may be the one waiting.