Breathless Haste

We decided to take a trip to see my parents, who were in their eighties. We felt it was time to start the conversation with them about this potential internship, even though it seemed premature. We told my father that a new minister was being hired, and my father’s initial response was to ask Jay to come help him farm. He had always longed to see us move to Florence, South Carolina, to live in the old homeplace and continue the farm that had been in our family for three generations. As we continued the discussion of the details of what was happening in our hearts and souls, I am sure this news of a potential job in Chicago was extremely hard for my father to hear. There was no one else in our family who wanted the opportunity to farm. Who would live in the home? How would the farm go on? But before the conversation finished, my father said to us, “One generation can’t tell the next generation what to do.”

He was willing to let us go, even though it must have been so painful for him. We were not only saying no to him and no to the farm, but also limiting the frequency of family visits. The distance between him and his daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren would be a daunting fourteen-hour drive instead of three.