Beech Tree News Network

On Saturday, about 1 pm, Garey and I started fencing in our garden.  Yes, I know the temperature outside was nearing 100 degrees, but the deer had been wreaking havoc on our peas and butter beans, and the corn is starting to tassel, which means the coons will be next.  As we were fencing, I thought about how different my life would have been if we had raised a couple of boys instead of a couple of girls.

 First, I want to make a couple of things clear.  One, we love our daughters and wouldn’t trade them for a hundred boys.  Secondly, we never tried to restrict our daughters in any way, just because they were females.  I grew up on a farm feeding animals, working in tobacco and helping in the garden.  I watched my stepmom turn posts with my dad at the saw mill.  She could drive a log truck and a team of mules as well as or even better than my dad could. 

I know that helping out on a farm can build a confidence in young people that will carry them a long way in life, but it can also be isolating.  It was particularly so for me, as well as for my sister-in-law, Charlotte, who spent more time in the fields than I did.  During our time as young girls in the areas where we grew up, there were plenty of boys out there in the fields, but few girls.  Charlotte has often said she felt no better than the field hands the wealthy Bagwell family hired to tend their crops in the area around her parents’ land.  Even though we grew up hundreds of miles apart, we both saw female classmates with much easier lives and better opportunities, and we both felt left out of the lives we saw other girls living.

When our daughters, Natalie and Nikki, came along, I didn’t want them to grow up with that stigma, so I stepped in to protect them.  I took their place.  When Garey needed help fencing or roofing the barn or splitting wood or anything else requiring physical labor, I made sure I was available.  I didn’t keep our girls from all work.  They did help stack wood and hoe in the garden and put out feed for the horses.  They did their own laundry and mowed the yard from time to time, but the energy-sapping work, I took on myself.  (As a side note, Nikki once got a job over other job applicants because she knew how to back up a truck hitched to a trailer—a skill she learned from Garey.)

Along the path of working with Garey, something amazing happened.  I learned how to do all kinds of things, and Garey and I developed the kind of bond that only occurs when two people work side by side.  (We also have the kinds of disputes that only occur when two people work side by side.  I believe with all my heart that I deserve those extra two degrees of cooler on the air conditioner setting that Garey believes I shouldn’t have.  I move the arrow when he’s not looking.  Don’t tell him.)

Throughout our years together, I have seen people shake their heads in wonder at our relationship.  I think most relationships defy explanation.  In the book, ANAM CARA, John O’Donahue writes this:

“Two people who love each other should never feel called to explain to an outside party why they love each other or why it is that they belong to each other.  The place that they belong is a secret place.  Their souls know why they are together, and they should trust that togetherness.”

 

 

Some things defy explanation, but they work.  That pretty much defines the relationship between Garey and Cheryl Hughes.  More than likely, it explains your relationships too.