His name is Merton, and he is my friend. His house right down the street from mine.  I used to mow his lawn with my riding lawn mower because he could  do it himself. (Years of being a farmer and breathing in all of those fertilizer chemicals did a real nasty tune on the old guy's lungs.)
Merton has been in and out the hospital for the past two years with various ailments, all connected in some way or another to his impaired respiratory system. Each time, he would call Mary Ellen, and she would race down to his house, call 911, and then accompany him to the hospital. 
Then, when he was ready to come home, again he would call Mary Ellen, and she would cart him home.
Mary Ellen handles his money for him also. She pays his bills.  She deposits his checks in the bank.
Mary Ellen is his executor and his best friend. 
Every year Merton spends Christmas Eve with us at our family celebration and holiday dinner.  It is the one night a year he "gets out", as he puts it.  The occasion is so big that it even merits him putting his teeth in.
Merton lays in a bed in a nursing home as I write this, bleeding to death from some unseen internal wound.  The doctors surmise that it might be the result of open tumors in his esophagus.
Mary Ellen phoned me a little while ago telling me that nursing home called her just a little while ago to ask her to bring Merton's living will to them because he was now "unresponsive."
Here is a story about this remarkable, quiet and unassuming old farmer that I first published a little over two years ago.

The Old Farmer

If you were to meet him, you would think that he was a rather unremarkable old man and not worth your interest or the time spent to get to know him. Many people would probably consider him to be much, much lower than themselves on the food chain, and they would write him off as an uninteresting, nondescript individual that just didn't measure up to their requirements of a friend. They might even consider him to be somebody that could drop dead tomorrow, and the world would suffer no loss.
And those people would be dead wrong.
I am here to tell you the story of a little, crooked, elderly man who spent his life as a farmer, lost everything, including his health, and now lives from Social Security check to Social Security check. His clothes are ragged, but clean. His face is unshaven more often than not, but, when his teeth are in, he has a smile that could win over even the most calloused soul.
His pockets are empty, but his heart is so big and so full and so overflowing with love that it brings a lump to this writer’s throat as I sit here at my computer writing these words.
I met Merton about fifteen years ago when I first started dating the woman who would later become my wife. My wife’s first husband, Dick, passed away while still a young man about nineteen years ago, leaving her with a ten year old boy. Dick had Parkinson’s Disease, and had a hard time walking great distances. He was a tinkerer and a jack-of-all-trades whose life revolved around his family and his garage, which was overstuffed with engine parts, air compressors, gas generators and every single tool imaginable. Since walking was such a taxing exercise for him, Dick would make one journey down to his garage every day and then stay there for hours, puttering around and entertaining any company that managed to come his way.
That company, more often than not, was the poor old farmer, Merton, whose farm had just been lost in a divorce battle, and who survived now as a hired hand on other people’s farms. Dick and Merton would sit and chew the fat for hours on end in that old garage, and sometimes they were joined by Dick’s young son, Rich. Merton saw how close the father and son were. He saw how much Rich idolized Dick, and how much Dick worshiped the boy, and he was struck by the love that two had for each other.
Dick’s disease progressed rapidly. His left hand was often shoved into his pocket in an attempt to hide that fact that it often shook uncontrollably. Family mealtimes were often punctuated by Dick gagging and choking while trying to eat because he couldn't control the muscles in his throat. (The entire family was trained in how to administer the Heimlich Maneuver.)
Dick died suddenly of a heart attack in the dead of winter. My wife Mary was called at school by a neighbor, whom Dick had managed to call when he knew that he was in trouble. The neighbor called the ambulance and then called Mary at work.
When Mary got home, the ambulance was in the yard, and the paramedics were carrying her very animated and agitated husband out of the house on a stretcher. They put him into the back of the ambulance, closed the doors, and that was the last time that Mary saw him alive. By the time they reached the hospital, Dick was gone.
Telling ten year old Rich about the death of his father when he came home from school that afternoon was the hardest thing that Mary ever had to do in her life. She knew how powerful the father-son bond was between Rich and his dad. Part of the reason it was so strong was because Dick was home all the time, due to his illness, and he spent so many quality hours with his son while his mother was at work putting food on the table for the family.
In the mornings, Dick would make breakfast for the boy, pack his lunch, and walk him down to the end of the driveway where they would wait together for the school bus. When Dick’s disease progressed to the point where he could barely walk, he would send the boy off down the driveway while he watched from the kitchen window until the familiar yellow and black vehicle showed up. Rich would then turn, wave good-bye to his father, and then he would step into the bus and be whisked off to school.
Rich’s first reaction to learning of his father’s death was total denial. He shook his head and screamed "NO!" at the top of his lungs. Then he turned, bolted out the door, and ran blindly deep into the woods surrounding the house, screaming and crying uncontrollably as he went. Hours later, when he returned exhausted and spent, he cried to his mother, "Who will wait for the school bus with me now?"
Dick’s death occurred on a Tuesday. The rest of the week was filled with a dizzying flurry of planning and attending the wake and the funeral, of noticing how big and empty the house was and how quiet the garage was, and of catering to well-intentioned friends and relatives who stopped over to express their grief and support. Mary’s biggest job though, was to attend to her distraught and suddenly very fragile and lonesome son.
Monday morning finally rolled around. The wake and the funeral were over, and now it was time to try to assume at least a semblance of a normal life again. Mary packed Rich’s lunch and kissed him good-bye at the back door, sending him down the driveway to await the school bus. Both of their hearts were heavy. Her’s because she knew this would be the time when his would miss his father the most. His, because he did, indeed, miss his father. He had dreaded this moment most of all since his father’s death. The little boy could barely stand the thought of waiting all alone at the bus stop.
But when he got to the bottom of the driveway with tears in his eyes and his lower lip quivering, he noticed a figure sitting on the ground under the large oak tree by the bus stop. As he drew closer, the figure stood up and turned to face him. It was Merton. The old farmer walked up to the child, put his hand on his shoulder and said, "Morning Rich. Mind if I wait here with ya?" Rich shook his head. So the little boy and crusty, bent, old farmer waited for the school bus together. And Merton continued to wait with young Rich at the bus stop every school day for the next three years.
He never asked for anything in return. When I asked Merton why he did it, he replied, "The boy needed me, and I was returning a favor."
If you were to meet him, you would think that he was a rather unremarkable old man who wasn't worth your interest or the time spent to get know him. And if you never got to know him, the loss would be all yours.

posted on June 27, 2006 6:27 PM (PST)