An Empty Chair

There is a special corner in my husband's shop that will long be remembered by the people who know him.  It is the area with the coffee pot, and the refrigerator full of water, pop, beer, gatorade, and popscicles.  There is a table which you can barely see the top for all the shop manuals on it, but you can always find a big container of unshelled peanuts or pretzels.  There are several chairs, mostly tall bar stools that we have picked up at garage sales.  All of this sits beside an old wood stove and in the winter there is a huge pile of wood that keeps this little area warm and inviting, as long as we don't forget to throw a log in it every now and then.  At least a couple times in the winter, I will take some straightened wire hangers and a bunch of hot dogs out to the shop so Mark, me, and the customers out there at that time, can eat roasted hot dogs for lunch.  When I go out for any reason, because Mark needs me to help him just a minute, or I've returned with a part for him, or I need to ask him something, I usually get an invitation to sit down for a minute.  We visit, have a cup of coffee and play with the dog, throwing pretzels in the air for him to catch.

  With him being the owner as well as the worker, there is no such thing as a closing time.  "Quitting" time comes when he is tired and he says "I've had enough!"  That time is somewhere around six in the winter and seven in the summer.  When I go out to the shop around that time, there is always a group of five or six men sitting around the wood stove with Mark, eating pretzels, peanuts, or popscicles, drinking a pop or a beer and shootin' the breeze.  I have sometimes been amazed at the conversations that I have come upon.  Of course the local gossip is told as well as discussions about how to fix things that are broken down. Young guys get teased and razzed about girlfriends or other things going on in their lives.  Jokes are told, ideas are shared.  But there are also deep conversations about faith, life, death, what the future holds, how important family is to each other and so on. On more than one occasion, the older men have talked about mistakes they have made in their past and what they had learned from them.  I think there is more than one young man who has benefited from the things they told, and possibly even been stopped from making a bad decision.

Yesterday, we attended the funeral of one of the "good old boys" who frequented this little corner of our shop.  He had fought the cancer living in his body for years and fought it valiantly, but it finally won.  Mike was a guy who didn't know a stranger.  He had such a unique personality, you never spoke to him without laughing and leaving the conversation feeling more joyful than you came.  His funeral was touching in so many ways.  Hearing how the minister came to love and be inspired by him even though he had only known him for a few short weeks.  Hearing him tell how Mike knew he was going home to be with Jesus and the peace it brought to him and his family.  Seeing his plain, pine wood, casket be brought to the burial spot on his ranch, in a wagon pulled by a team of horses.  Mike had been a volunteer firefighter for twenty four years and at the end of the short graveside service, we heard one of the other firefighters radio squawk and the dispatcher called for him.  She did it three times and then another voice came over the radio advising the dispatcher that Mike had taken his final call.  The dispatcher than told all other units that Mike would no longer be taking any calls, and she ended by saying "Good bye and God Bless".  There was not a dry eye in the place.  A fitting tribute to a life well lived and a man who will be missed by many.

Lying in bed last night, I pulled out a book called "Last Flight, Lone Survivor".  It's about a man who was the only person to survive a plane crash, who was in a coma for three days with injuries no doctor thought were survivable.  He then relates the things he experienced during those three days, knowing without a doubt that he visited heaven during that time.  I read the things he wrote about, seeing himself leave his body, go rushing through the darkness toward a light, accompanied by two angels, coming to a beautiful city of gold, with vivid colors he had never seen, with beautiful sounds and a fragrance so beautiful he could not even begin to describe them in words.  Feeling a love that we don't even know here on earth, being drawn to the center of this city and knowing that he was about to meet Jesus before he was suddenly dropped back to earth.  I envisioned Mike experiencing all of this, being amazed with all he was seeing, being free from the pain and worries of this life, and I smiled.  I just wish God would let him come back one more time, to sit in one of our bar stools and tell us all about it.  I have a feeling all other conversation would cease as Mike would tell us that nothing else matters, that all worries of this life are not worth worrying about, that our lives are such a small little speck of time in the spectrum of eternity.  He would tell us to stop sweating the small stuff, to stop worrying about "things," how to get them, and how to keep them, to just concentrate on loving one another the best we can until we get to join him in that golden city above, where there are no problems, no tears, no worries, and the warmth never leaves, even if someone forgets to throw another log on the fire!