I have learned a new facet of life at the farm. Two facets, actually: family and death. Both of which I have been introduced to in the past 24 hours. There are several who live in Gilelland: Doyle and his wife (Albert's Brother), Gerald and Shelby (he is a man a lot like John...considered family without blood relation), Bert (Albert Taylor, Jr.), Albert and Martha Jean aka Papa Bud and Mama Jean, John and Myself and Paul (he is an ex-son-in-law). In this family of sorts, death has cast its shadow: Albert Taylor, Jr. had a heart attack yesterday morning in his home. I had not been exposed to this family other than Mama Jean and Papa Bud. I do not know dynamics or stories or how people act or don't act. It is a new family to me. I aslo do not know my role. I am the newest in this family and while I am not a new baby, I recieve as much love and acceptance as one even though there is someone missing. I have never met Bert. I invited him to the wedding, unfortunately, he works in the funeral business and was called away. Odd, I never think that a funeral man would die. Irony about it was that the night prior, he was showing his parents the way he wanted his funeral laid out when he died. He loved being a funeral assistant so much that he'd applied to apprentice for a director, a morticianer. And now, he's dead. Just odd. Turns out, just like everything else on the farm, I have a use. I have special use in this time of grieving: listening. I am the listener. All the stories that I have heard and can tell in my own family like Uncle Bobby riding the bike through the dining room and cutting his hand up through the glass door, 'the boys' dismantling my grandmother's car the same day grandaddy bought it or mom screaming out the window for some boy to go away; I have never heard in this family. There are many of them, like how Albert Sr. and Martha met, how Bert caught a timber rattler and was on tv, the scandal between ex-s, the beauty of daughters and the achievements of sons. My other responsibility is to comfort. I am comforting Albert and Martha Jean, anything that needs to be done, I do. John does the heavy lifting stuff, emotionally hard stuff and the just plain things that have to be done stuff and I do the comforting,tending and listening. I have use. I am finding with each minute that I listen that it is more important that I keep listening.

Tonight I listened to the big house (Albert and Martha Jean's) and the fire as it breathed while we waited for the family to return from the visitation. Mama Jean wanted someone at the house so no one would steal anything and to recieve visitors in case they stop. That is what we did, John and I. Once the family returned I went back to listening to them. They said there were 896 names in the book at the funeral home, probably 1000 that came through the line and that there was a two hour weight just to see Papa Bud and Mama Jean.

Tomorrow, I will go and listen again. I will listen to a preach I don't know preach about a man I have never met. I will listen to the family I live with tell stories I have never heard. I will listen to the sounds of silence that hold the greiving hearts of my family.