Daddy's Tractor

There is a small list of things that I avoid because they remind me of Jeff.

The local pumpkin patch
Punkin Chunkin
My backyard
Jeff's tractor

Jeff's tractor has been on my mind the past few weeks.  It is fall and while it was Jeff's favorite time of the year, after we bought our house it was his least favorite time of the year as well.  Because of the leaves.  So, so many leaves to rake up.  He hated every one of them.

Shortly after buying our house, with it's half acre of lawn, Jeff needed a new lawn mower.  The ride on mower the previous owners left behind died and he'd been pushing a mower up and down our steep hills and having a miserable time of it.  So he bought a tractor. 

Jeff, employing the "Tim-the-Toolman Taylor method of power tools" bought a big-ass Kubota tractor.  It is really for a much larger lawn (farm).  But Jeff was done with the push mower and the tractor was a giant toy.  That is not to say that the tractor did not have it's functions.  In fact, I swear it paid for itself after "snowmageddon".  Jeff not only plowed our driveway and hill but many of the neighbors drives as well.  He spent days on that tractor moving snow and had a blast.

Jeff made doing the lawn a joy with the tractor.  After he mowed the lawn he would circle back to the house and pick up a boy for a tractor ride.  My boys would run from window to window, noses pressed to the glass, watching his progress.  "Is Daddy done? When will Daddy be done?  Is he done yet?".  "He's done now!  Yeah!!!" and they would scamper out the door.

Jeff would scoop one up and take him around into the back 2 acres that borders the water.  He would do a small amount of trimming but mostly he just took the boys for a ride.  He would circle back and snag the second boy for a trip.  All three of them loved that tractor.

In the fall before Jeff's death, he bought a leaf catcher for the tractor.  He was thrilled.  He could finally get all the leaves up while on the tractor and it cut his time gathering leaves to next to nothing.  He finally loved fall again. 

In the early months after Jeff's death I sold his motorcycle and his truck but I couldn't part with the tractor.  Maybe it's the memories of the boys on his lap or maybe I just hit a wall.  The wall of lethargy that I hit around 5 months when I stopped having to do stuff in order to survive.  The tractor suffered from un-use and I sent it off to be repaired but I still haven't driven it.  I don't even go on it.  It sits in my garage like a giant orange reminder of Jeff. 

I have no real excuse.  I could ask my father in law to take care of it and he would sell it for me.  It isn't as if I have to do anything really.  But for some reason, while I can't sit on it or drive it or even think about it... I can't part with it either.

Sincerely,

Jeff's Widow