I came to a stop at the intersection of the wide dirt road. On all corners, I could see cornfields. It wasn’t until I made my left onto Procter road and headed down the bumpy dirt path, that I noticed the two-story farmhouse. It sat there, a little ways from the path surrounded by green grass and cornfields. My car slowly inched up, further along the street, kicking up a light brown dust into the blue sky, thickening the air.

A white picket fence wrapped itself along the edge of the road, fencing in yards of freshly mowed bright green grass. I pulled into an open space that was paved with grey white cement that led to a shed and stopped just feet in front of the old wooden building before getting out.

It had been years since I had stepped foot onto the farm. The place was still painted the same color, a light peach with a burnt orange trim. I remember how much I hated that color and how much my wife loved the whole set up.

Now was the chance for her to have it all. Grandma was gone, resting in an urn sitting in my living room and it was up to me, As the last living relative, it had fallen to me, to decide on what was going to happen to the farm. I had no need to keep it, I wasn’t a farmer, didn’t know what to do with all the fields that Grandpa used to grow corn. I didn’t know how to plant flowers and tomatoes like Grandma did. About all I knew how to do was pick apples out of the trees that were sprinkled across the front and back yard.

My wife, however had heard all the stories from Grandma. How Grandpa would have us all plant pumpkins, about how he would cut a maze out of the cornfield and invite over all the neighbor kids who would search through it, playing tag.

She loved the dark green vines that crawled along the side of the house, the bright white and yellow daises that Grandma grew out below the windows and most of all the yellow, red and orange snapdragons that collected in circles around the benches that Grandma would place her fresh apple pie on. To my wife, it was the perfect wholesome place to raise kids and create memories. This is where she wanted to be, away from it all, away from the city.

I had spent most of my childhood on the farm. After my parents died when I was four, I knew nothing but the farm. I wanted that big city, the noise of construction, the smell of a million different foods. I didn’t even mind the traffic.

Their influences all raced though my head. My wife and my grandparents agreed that this would be the perfect place to raise children. Now with Grandma gone, it was all up to me. I was left to decide what was to become of the farm.

I stood in front of the wooden door and gave a quick look around the yard. The blue sky broke off from the yellow cornfields, the light colored dirt road lined them, and the white fence trimmed the bright green grass that sparkled with the touch of the sun. Taking the keys out of my pocket, I let them jingle in my hand before placing them back and turning the knob of the door. Grandma never locked the house; it was always open to family, friends and good company.

The house had not changed. The eggshell white walls were still covered in pictures of my childhood and my mother’s childhood. One of Grandma’s many crotched blankets laid across the sofa and one of her hand made pillows sat in the nook of Grandpa’s favorite chair. I could even smell her perfume and the tobacco from his pipe in the air.

On the coffee table sat pictures of my Grandparents at their wedding, a picture of Grandpa in his Army uniform and a picture of Grandma and Grandpa days before he passed away. Both of them smiling and holding each other as they had done fifty plus years before.

For the first time since the news of Grandmothers death, a lump formed in my throat my eyes burned and I took in a deep breath to release it all before turning away. It was all starting to hit me. Looking at the pictures of my Grandparents was enough to tell me that it was time let it all go. Time to let them all go. I closed the door to the house without looking back.

I headed for my car, taking the steps of the porch two at a time, already making plans to have everything in the farmhouse donated to the nearest church. I didn’t remember to check the shed until I reached the driveway.

The shed wasn’t just a shed, Grandpa had hopes of opening up a shop and had built one on his own, paving the new driveway that lead to the shop by hand. I remember right after he put in that driveway. It was the coolest thing in the world for me. I would go off with a silver pail, take it to the road right outside of the fence, and fill it to the top with gravel and dirt. Then I’d come up to the driveway and sprinkle hands full of it on the driveway, bringing up small piles of dust clouds all over the place. When the pail was empty, I would put on my sneakers, start at the entrance of the driveway and run towards the pile of dirt, sliding across it, skidding on my knees and bottom and coming up a bloody mess. Grandma would throw a fit every time she came through that door and found her driveway looking like the open road outside her white picket fence.

One day I came in with my left knee bloody as all heck, screaming at the top of my lungs “Grandma! I need another BAND- AID!” I hobbled through the living room holding my knee before flopping down at the kitchen table.

Grandma instantly knew what had happened and with a quick tongue-lashing, she sent me to the bathroom to clean up my wound. When I returned for my band-aid, I was handed a broom instead. “It looks like you’re going to have another scar to match the one on your other knee. It also looks like you are going to be spending a lot of time with this broom.” With the broom in hand, she shoved me out the.

I had started on the job but it didn’t last long. I soon spotted Bridget our lab and quickly got the idea to tie the broom around her behind and chase her through the driveway. In a flash, I headed to Grandpa’s shed, grabbed some rope, and ran back chasing the dog through the yard. I couldn’t catch her but since I was only seven, a good idea was never far behind. “Justin!” I screamed. “Justin, come here!” I ran to the shop and pulled open the door to Grandpa’s old Ford truck.

There sat Justin with a metal box that had belonged to our father on his lap. “Look, I found this.” He held up another rock for me to see.

“I don’t care, I wanna show you something, let’s go.” I grabbed him by the back of his overalls and proceeded to pull him out of the truck.

“Wait, I gotta put this away.” I let go and allowed him to put the rock away and lock up the box with a little brass key that was hooked to a chain. He placed the key and chain around his neck and hopped out of the truck. “Watcha gotta show me huh?”

“Hold your arms up; I need to make you into a super hero.” I told him.

I placed Grandma’s broom to his back and began to wrap the rope around. “Ok now go out side to the driveway and run around.” I told him.

Since he was only four years old, the broom stuck out over his head by a good foot or so and caused him to waddle out to the driveway, stiff as a board. The whole deal was so funny that I ran off to get the camera that had been given to me by my mother. I raced back down the stairs with camera in hand to find that Bridget had caught wind of Justin and had begun to sniff him with curiosity.

“Run Justin, run!” I shouted out as Bridget began to sniff his butt. “She’s gonna attack you!” Justin began to scream and run around the driveway not doing a thing to the dirt but scraping a path in it with the broom and kicking it around. I on the other hand stayed on the porch snapping pictures of my brother as Bridget continued to pounce and sniff, sending him into a high pitch frenzy screaming “Get Bridget off me! Down Bridget, bad dog!”

He never saw it coming but I did. It was a light blue car. I watched it as it plowed through the cornfield across the street, jumping into the air and kicking up stalks and corn. Behind it was another car chasing after it but instead of plowing through the field, it swerved around the corner, throwing dust in the air and spinning out of control and coming to a halt.

Apparently, the other car didn’t notice that the chase was over. It continued to plow through the field until it reached the dirt road. The second it hit the road it skid out of control, crashing through our white fence.

I saw it coming, my brother didn’t.

It was a loud thump when the car hit him and watched him fly feet in the air and land on the soft green grass like one of Bridget’s stuffed toys. Grandma’s broom lay broken in two on the ground and the car simply backed up and left. All I could do was stand on the porch steps and scream.

Grandpa had heard it all and was already on his way to Justin when Grandma came running from the kitchen. “Get the boy inside!” he shouted to her. I don’t know how she did it, but I felt her fragile arms wrap around me with the strength stronger than Grandpas, stronger than any other man and with that strength carried me into the house, up the stairs and to my bed.

I cried there in my bed, in Grandma’s arms. I cried until I feel asleep.

When I woke up the sun was just starting to rise. I noticed that Justin was not in bed and instantly ran down the stairs in search for him. In the kitchen sat my Grandparents. Grandpa called me over to his lap and it was then that I was told the news.

The cars had never stopped but the police had found them. My brother was gone, dead before Grandpa had even gotten to him.

I pushed myself from Grandpa and ran out the door to the area that Justin was last at. The fence was still down, there were skid marks deep in the grass and there laid the broom broken in two. I grabbed it up and headed to the Grandpa’s old Ford and lay there, holding that broom and Justin’s box.

Grandma came in with breakfast and set it on top of a shelf before leaving. She also dropped off lunch and dinner, I didn’t eat any of it but she brought dessert anyways. I waited for her to leave before lifting my head up for a bit and looking out the back window of the truck. There I could see the gap in the fence. Slowly I lowered myself and cried to sleep for the second night in a row. I woke up with a blanket around me and another plate of food.

I spent many days in the Grandpa’s old Ford. I kept the broom right on the seat and Justin’s box right in my lap. Days after the funeral Grandma came up to the window of the ford and gave it a little tap. Slowly she opened up the door.

“I have something for you.” She said quietly. “I thought you would want these.” She handed me a brown bag, sitting it on my lap. I opened it up and found my mothers old camera. “I remember when your mother and father passed away during that trip. They had this camera with them and I just couldn’t bring myself to develop those pictures.” She paused, “Finally I did it and I found pictures of you and your brother, pictures of Bridget and pictures of your mother and father together, smiling…” A tear ran down her cheek and all I could do was nod my head as if I understood.

“We want to remember the good things. The good things are all we have. All the good memories are all we have. Memories and all the things that we have all shared with each other in life. Things like these pictures, your mother’s old camera, your fathers old lock box and the items that your brother put into it. Even this old Ford that your Grandpa and me would drive around in. These little things, they bring back so many memories.” She wiped a tear from her face. “I thought you would like to have something to remember those happy moments with your brother by.” She stroke the side of my head, “When you are ready, you come back inside okay.”

I listened as the door shut gently and waited until I felt that she was safely out of the shop before looking into the bag.

Inside I pulled out an envelope and opened it up. Out came pictures of me and Justin and then Justin and Bridget. I let my chest expand my eyes burn and then gently put the pictures into the envelope and began to place it back into the bag. It was then that I heard something slide. I reached down below and pulled out a metal chain with a little brass key attached to it.

With key in hand, I searched the bottom of the truck and pulled out the metal box that my father had given to my brother. Opening it up I found the rock that he had showed me the day that I pulled him out of the truck to be a super hero. I placed it back in along with pictures and camera and had slid it back onto the floor where Justin had kept it.

Over the next few years, I would go in there with little toys that we had shared, rocks, bottle caps, twigs and anything that I thought that my brother would have collected. As the years went past, I used the old Ford more for making out with girls during the night than I did for spending time thinking of my brother.


I walked around my car and slid the latch off the shop door. With a loud creek, it slid open and revealed a nineteen thirty-nine Ford truck. It was the only thing in the shop that caught my attention and held it.

“This here son is a Ford. A Ford truck.” Grandpa would boast to me. “


I opened the truck door and slid in across the dust-covered seat. Closing the door, I took in the stale air and rubbed my hands over the metal steering wheel. I had forgotten all about that old Ford and now I had to figure out what to do with the girl. I took a look behind me and saw a perfect view of the yard and the dirt road that lay beyond it. It was then that the memories hit me.


I opened my eyes, reached over to the bottom of the old ford, and found the little metal box right next to the two halves of the broom. I searched the floor for the key and found it right in the same spot. I brought the items up and placing the key into the lock, I opened it and began to search through. I found the little die cast cars and the many rocks I had placed in there. I also found my mothers camera. At the bottom was the rock that Justin had showed me that day and the pictures I had taken. I flipped through the faded pictures of me and my brother climbing apple trees, sitting on Grandpa’s old Ford, Justin with Grandma’s broom attached to his back being chased by Bridget. It was then that I realized what had hit me before. Why I had to leave the house after seeing the pictures.

“The good things are all we have. All the good memories are all we have. Memories and all the things that we have all shared with each other in life...” It was the words of Grandma.

And they were true.

My chest swelled up, my eye’s burned but this time I didn’t take that deep breath. I took it all in and let it hit me. I let it all hit me. The fact that I was giving it all away. The farm that my Grandparents built up and raised their child and grandchildren in. All the items that belonged to them, my mother, my father, my brother. The only link that I had to them, the one that I would be able to share with my children, to teach them about the family that they never knew. I was giving up all connections, memories, pictures and everything we had all shared.

I sat with Grandma’s broom across my lap holding on to my Fathers lock box that held my Mothers camera, my Brothers rock collection and all the toys that I had shared with him. I sat there in Grandpa’s old Ford and held onto all the happy memories and things that we had shared. Moreover, I knew then, that I didn’t want to let go.
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