Her Path

Old Bill Yoder's wife died last September. It wasn't much of a surprise - folks had been saying she was slipping for years. There was no specific cause of death; she just went to bed one Saturday night and didn't get up for church in the morning.

Yesterday Bill went about his business as usual. He let the donkey out to run around, milked the cows and left a message on his son who lives in Baltimore's answering machine. After lunch he pulled his tattered plaid coat back on and went outside to chop wood for the fireplace. His bones ached a little with the cold, but he was used to it. He was just thankful for the misty cool he always called "Mississippi weather." It could be a lot worse in Indiana in February.

He dropped his axe twice while chopping wood, and the second time he didn't pick it up. Instead he sat down on a tree stump and looked wistfully down the hill at the path his wife always took through the woods when she needed a think. Bill hadn't set foot on that path all winter. Sometimes he'd wonder if she was down there, walking and waiting for the spring. Sometimes he almost went for a walk, but he always decided at the last minute to let it be. It was his wife's path, not his.

Bill sighed and slowly stood back up, feeling the creaking in his joints. He loaded the wood into the rusty wheelbarrow that used to be green and pushed it back to the front porch.

After a meager supper and two more messages on his son's answer machine, Bill sat down to watch the History Channel. He liked the History Channel because he was seventy and he got to see things that happened when he was nine. At seven-thirty he shuffled to his room and went to bed. He usually stayed up a little later, but he hadn't been to church since Christmas Eve and he wanted to make sure he got up in time to make the fifteen minute drive.

Today is Sunday, but Old Bill Yoder didn't get up for church this morning. Instead he went for a walk on the path through the woods. His wife was there, just like he knew she'd be.