Getting Through It

sometimes being there is more important than words

My buddy Joe set down his third beer on my back steps. Then he got this misty look in his eye. “Yeah, remember the time we stayed in this log cabin motel near Cadillac to go skiing the next morning at Caberfae?”

“Caberfae? Vaguely…”

“Yeah, that was the night I told you about Kathy and how I was going to marry her. And you said, lucky guy that you found someone like her.” And the next morning at breakfast there were these two old farts, probably about our age, now, talking about how you got heat three times from cutting wood…when you cut it, when you hauled it, and when you burned it.”

“Naw, can’t say I remember.”

“Yeah, well, that has stuck with me over all these years…grass roots, hard core American wisdom. But you don’t remember? Any of that?””

I shrugged. “Funny how each of us can recall some things and the other can’t, even when we both experienced it together.”

“Well, hell, Jimmy, you do remember me introducing you to your wife, don’t you?”

“Yeah, how can I forget? She reminds every so often, when she gets mad at me.”

Joe elbowed me in the ribs. “You guys get along great, thanks to me getting you together.”

“That and a lot of hard work that has nothing to do with you…getting laid off, babies, operations, sick kids…”

“Yeah, well, sometimes I took you salmon fishing on the Muskegon river. Remember that? Huh?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

Joe shook his head. “You think that was all about fishing?”

“What…?”

“It was about getting you away for a while. Hell, if we wanted fish we cudda just bought some down to Meijer’s. I could tell when you needed to get away. And that time we went to Chicago to watch the Sox play the Tigers, we could have just as easy have watched them at Tiger Stadium the next week when they came to town.”

“So, you were doing me a favor?”

“Don’t get huffy. Sometime we just need a little hand to get through a rough patch.”

“So, you’re a counselor now? Giving advice?”

“C’mon man. It’s not about words. We look out for each other, okay? Sometimes we help each other get back to basics…chopping wood, getting warm any way we can. And eventually we get through it. Like that.”