I haven’t written much this month. May is not one of my favorite months. Although I love springtime at the farm, it tends to be emotionally draining for me and my family (I think I drain them…). You see, my youngest son, Jeremy died on May 29th, 2020. It’s been six years and I still have a hard time with every anniversary. I miss him every day, but the 29th is the most difficult of all.
You would think I’d be better at figuring out why I’m suddenly distracted with day-to-day work, forgetful (more than usual…), and feeling overwhelmed. It’s usually the week before the 29th that the light bulb comes on and I have to go and make amends to those I’ve been short with. Fortunately, I have some wonderful people in my life who understand I’m why I’m not handling everyday interactions very well, showing me much more grace than I feel I deserve.
One thing I’ve learned over the last six years is that grief has no expiration date. Well meaning friends have given me the space to grieve but they don’t always understand why the feelings are so strong after six years. They don’t come right out and say it, but it often feels like they think I should be “over it” by now. Grief has a way of distorting reality. I’m sure no one (well, at least most people) really thinks ill of my grief. I often must remind myself that feelings are not facts.
Last year I started writing a collection of stories about Jeremy and I. I’ve shared the first couple of them with my friends and readers. The others have been slow in coming. Writing time is a prized possession around here. My wife, my home, and the farm fill my cup to overflowing, leaving little room for the reflection honest storytelling requires, especially when it comes to being honest about my own demons and an often turbulent, yet tight, relationship with my son. They’ve been full of ups and downs, joy and despair, but I hope to share more of those stories as the coming year allows.
Just for today, I’ll let the feelings come. I’ve been told that grief becomes easier to bear as time goes by. I’m not sure it gets easier, but I know it gets different. I’m often reminded of all the joy Jeremy brought into the world – my world – but there’s always a deep sense of loss underneath the surface. Maybe that’s a good thing. It’s also a reminder that I get to honor Jeremy and the God who loves me by how I celebrate each day through my family and my work. Moreover, I’m constantly reminded that the loss is only temporary in the grand scheme of things – that one day we’ll all be together again in a world free of the tears that this world so often has.
So folks, if I’m a bit melancholy and irritable today, please allow me my feelings and know it’s a hard day for me. Maybe if we could all remember that everyone has difficulties in life we may not see, we could all be a little more patient and loving towards others. That would sure make living easier for all of us. Please remember too, that sometimes the greatest gift one can give to a grieving person is their simple, silent presence. There are no words of comfort, only the reminder that we are loved.
Farming has its challenges. The weather is either too wet or too dry, too hot or too cold; equipment breaks down at the most inopportune time; pest pressure; the list goes on. The latest challenge – water level on the Trinity River, which provides water for irrigating our crops, dropping lower than our pumps can reach, leaving us high and dry with new Spring seed in the ground. The Tarrant Regional Water District has construction going on by the Fourth Street dam just upstream from us and had to lower the water level in our section of the river to complete the work. It may be a month before the water level returns to a normal level. The farm can’t go for a month without water, and the weather forecast isn’t looking favorably for us. “Houston, we have a problem…”
The immediate issue was getting water on the new seed as quickly as possible. To make a long story short, it was too muddy to get our other pump close enough to the water to get to suction hose in, so I filled four fifty-gallon water barrels at home each morning, drove to the farm, and hand watered the new seed, all the while praying to seek a better solution. The process was long, slow, and really hard work for this old man.
I trust that God hears my prayers and always answers even though I don’t always listen very well (and if I’m honest, I’ll still try to figure out things my way because I don’t like the answer, but that’s another story). Still, I’ve gotten better as I’ve gotten older at watching and listening for God’s instructions.
This week, the answer came from one of our regular volunteers and friends of the farm, Amir (I haven’t asked his permission to use his full name and picture on social media yet). Amir is one of my favorite people. He comes most Thursdays and Saturday mornings to help at the farm and often brings his young son as well. He believes his son needs to learn the value of helping others (that won him Father of the Year in my book). When he saw our problem, he called to meet me at Opal’s Farm on Friday morning. He wanted to put our heads together to see if we could find a solution to the irrigation problem.
We pondered our options and then it occurred to Amir that we could pull the pump from its pipe to the river, extend the Pex piping and electrical wire and push the pump farther into the river. Great idea! I was fully expecting Amir to have to go on to his work and do it over the weekend. He looked at me and said, “If we can get the parts this morning, we should have water this afternoon”. Needless to say, after a very long Friday and very cold Trinity River water we have irrigation again.
The reason I mention this is because I need to tell you how blessed I am to have great volunteers, and especially Amir. He sees his time as an investment in Opal’s Farm, our mission, and our future. He gave up his work time to help at a critical moment. That’s the kind of people that God has blessed me with over the last seven years at Opal’s Farm. I just want to give him a special shout-out.
Texas Farm Bureau Day
We were also blessed to have a group of college students from around the state and the Texas Farm Bureau come by on Saturday morning. Many of these folks have production farming experience so the amount of work and the initiative they brought to Opal’s on a Saturday morning was beyond amazing. Thanks to these young people our tomatoes are planted, most of the trellises up, and the beds are weed-free (at least until the next rain…). Thanks to Kyndal with the Texas Farm Bureau for putting all this together!
If you would like to volunteer as an individual or as a group, please feel free to call 817.602.8225, but hurry as Spring dates are going fast.
It’s January in Texas. I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt two days ago. Today I’m sitting here at the desk watching snow falling with wind chills in the teens. It looks like it may stick around for the next couple of days so I’m taking advantage of the weather to enjoy the comfort of my office and get caught up on stuff at home.
I covered everything at Opal’s Farm with frost cloth and mulch in preparation for this weekend. It rained all day Friday which is was needed for the crops during this cold snap. Still, the weather folks are saying we’ll have eighty-six hours of below freezing temperatures. Now I wait. It’s always unnerving to wait for hard freezes like this to end. I join all area farmers in saying lots of prayers and hoping I don’t lose everything. Such is the nature of farming, whether urban or rural.
One cannot be a control freak and be comfortable farming. Some things are simply beyond my control – it’s too hot or too cold, too wet or too dry – I can’t control the weather. In fact, I came to the farm one day last week and my pump wouldn’t work. After checking all the possible (and solvable) mechanical problems, I walked down to the river to find that it had dropped several feet almost overnight. My pump was three feet out of the water. I have no idea how that happened. That’s a new one for me. At least it’s usually new problems to deal with. That’s one of the joys (or curses) of farming. No two days are alike. You won’t get bored!
Farming has taught me the real value of the Serenity Prayer, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Acceptance comes easier these days. There are some things I can’t do anything about. They simply are what they are. Acceptance surrenders the results and trusts the process before me. My friend Jim always told me to chop wood and let the chips fall where they may.
There are things I can do to mitigate some of damages caused by the things beyond my control, but quite honestly, some days can be rough: drought, pest pressure, equipment problems, funding issues – they can feel overwhelming. It takes courage to face things head on despite the uncertainties of the desired outcome. Courage is also about patience and perseverance. Sometimes it’s as simple as showing up for one more hour, or one more day despite fear, frustrations, and feeling defeated. I’ve was always told that ninety-five percent of life is just showing up. Sometimes it takes great courage to just do simple things…
“Wisdom to know the difference.” I can’t (and won’t) lay claim to being wise, but I am better at seeing what’s important, what I can change. I still run into walls, just not as often. Choices have become a tad easier to make with some success – not just at the farm but at home and in the community. Progress, not perfection I’ve always been told. Letting go of perfection and desired outcomes has freed me of the shackles of always having to be right. It’s allowed me to use the most freeing words in the English language – “I don’t know”. When I don’t have the answers, I have community, with you all and with my Creator.
If I’m really honest, it’s hard to be inside for two or three days straight. I miss being at the farm. I wonder how we’ve survived yesterday knowing that the worst of the cold is yet to come, but I’m grateful for the rest and the time with my wife. I pray that you all are doing well – the power’s still om, the home fires burn brightly, and you don’t have to get out on the roads. Enjoy the break. I will too…
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday. We had a wonderful day with food, family, and Dallas Cowboys football, I normally have a little anxiety around family gatherings being the introvert that I am. My social battery tends to run low after a couple of hours, but this year it lasted from around two in the afternoon until after ten o’clock in the evening. I normally am worn out after being around people, even loved ones for so long. This year was different. I was tired, but happy to have spent our time together. Something special happened this year that been somewhat absent in the past.
One of my wife’s family traditions is to take time between Thanksgiving dinner and dessert to read a passage of scripture and go around the table and have each person tell what they are grateful for. I won’t go into details except to tell you that each of us found deeper appreciation for each other and the grace we’ve been given. This year the passage was from I Thessalonians 5:16-18, “Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what happens. This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live” (The Message Bible). Good advice to everyone no matter what their faith I’d say.
No matter what happens. Most of us find it easy to be grateful when things are going well for us. It’s equally easy to take the good times for granted, but we’re going to focus on gratitude only here. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines gratitude as: “Gratitude noun – the state of being grateful.” When everything seems to be okay – the rent’s paid, there’s food on the table, we can afford a nice vacation or a new car – it’s easy to have a grateful state of mind, but what happens when tragedy strikes – the death of a loved one, unemployment, financial fear, the old car breaks down – and everything and everyone seems to be against us.
My youngest son, Jeremy, died in May of 2020. Let me be clear, I am not grateful for his death. It’s one of the most difficult things I’ve ever experienced. Parents who have lost a child know what I mean. The grief feels insurmountable and honestly, I don’t think it ever goes away. I still have moments when a song is played, I glance at one of his paintings, or my grandkids talk about how much they miss him when the sadness burst into my day and I feel as emotionally raw as the day I received the phone that he was gone. It’s a constant reminder of loss. It feels sacrilegious, or even hateful, to find gratitude in such a thing.
However, there’s immense gratitude for what happened after Jeremy died. God had placed all the people in my life that would help me walk through this tragedy. My friend and sponsor, Edgar, had lost his own son some twenty-two years earlier. He was the second person I called (the first was my wife) as I drove to my oldest granddaughter’s house to tell her the news. Over the following months he answered every phone call and walked me through the pain. He had been there before. He shared my pain and gave of himself to offer healing and hope during a dark time.
Moreover, two of our friend’s circle lost their sons as well, one to an opiate overdose like Jeremy. I could share with him the little experience I had. Helping others helps me. We were all there for one another – something I will be eternally grateful for.
Most recently, this last year has been one I don’t wish to repeat for a myriad of reasons. Funding cuts began in January. I had to lay off my staff. My paychecks were few and far between causing huge financial difficulty for both the farm and our personal finances.
In April, I blew my left knee out. Subsequent doctor appointments revealed that both knees were now bone on bone, a knee replacement was my last option, and pain became a daily issue. The farmers markets have been much slower, a reflection of a weakening economy, and sales have been down. In October, my Volunteer Coordinator quit suddenly with no explanation. After five years she had become a friend, and her loss was hurtful. I now had to give up Saturday morning markets to be there for volunteers already on the schedule. To make matters worse, my planned knee surgery fell through and it would be next November before I could again take time off for recovery. There were more than a few dark days for me. Why would anyone find gratitude in such a year?
I scaled back, took on only what I could handle, and we’ve had more volunteer groups than in past years. What wasn’t sold was donated to some great local organizations and we’ve still managed to keep moving forward. We still yielded produce totals like the year before with less land and labor. Funding has increased (we’re a non-profit farm) and new market opportunities have arisen to help us better meet our mission of improving food access for our neighbors. We saw new grants relieve the payroll anxiety thanks to Texas Health Community Hope and the North Texas Communities Foundation (more on that to come this week!) we are greeting the new year on a firm footing.
I’ve been able to let go of the hurt (it’s taken awhile) and disruption of (our Volunteer Coordinator) Stacey’s sudden departure and work with some amazing volunteers I’d been missing for the last few months. My knees still hurt but not like they were. Work is much more tolerable. A bit slower perhaps but that may be age over injury. Who’s to say?
I’m grateful for what this year has brought to me. I’m still out there every day doing the best I can and far better than expected. I’m able to keep moving and I’ve learned that my physical (and sometimes emotional) limits are not nearly as bad as I thought. I’m getting much better at thanking God “no matter what happens”.
It’s often simply a matter of perspective – whether one sees difficulty as a problem or as an opportunity. Living in a state of gratitude helps shift one’s perspective. Sometimes I only learn to be grateful looking back at how God had blessed and stood by me. One of my favorite quotes is from Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford commencement speech, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward “. Many times, I stumble through the dark times until I look back and see how I’ve been loved and cared for. I’m getting better staying in the moment…
There’s an abundance of studies and articles about the benefits of gratitude, but I choose a very simple definition: gratitude isn’t just a noun. The dictionary may not say it, but it’s a verb as well. It’s not just a state of mind, but an action word. Sometimes placing one foot in front of another is the simplest form of gratitude one can have. My prayer for us all is that we may truly come to “Thank God no matter what happens”.
“When people were hungry, Jesus didn’t say, “Now is that political or social?” He said, “I feed you.” Because the good news to a hungry person is bread.” – Desmond Tutu
In October of 2018 I shut down my business to work full-time as the Farm Manager for Opal’s Farm. I knew from my first meeting with Ms. Opal that the farm is where I was called to be, but the first time I saw the whole five acres tilled I wondered how I’d ever “eat the elephant” in front of me. Thanks to my dear friend and mentor, Charlie Blaylock, I didn’t have to. He told me to take one bite at a time, plant one row at a time, and do what I could do each day. If I did that the “elephant” would turn into a glorious farm.
Charlie was right. Nobody wanted to donate to a dream that first year, so money was scarce. All we had were donated tools, donated seeds, and one volunteer to help start our first acre (We love you, Brendan!). The two of us built beds, planted those donated seeds, and with help from the weather that year we had our first harvest on the first acre of Opal’s Farm. What started as a vision of what could be has become a reality over the last seven years. Ms. Opal reminds me that “we’ve done so much with so little for so long that we can do anything with nothing.”
Once we had something to show the funds started coming in slowly and we added more tools, equipment, and crops each season. More volunteers came to the farm and became valued members of the Opal’s Farm community. We were even able to add some paid farmhands (my back was celebrating!). We’ve been proud members of the Cowtown Farmers Market since 2019, hosted events and pop-up neighborhood markets, and opened our own Opal’s Farm Stand in 2024. We became an authorized Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – SNAP – retailer in 2023 and recently added the Double Up Bucks program this year thanks to Texas Health Community Hope and Double Up Texas.
The past ten months have seen many changes in the political and social climate we live and work in. It came to a head when the federal government came to a screeching halt for forty-three days while the Democrats and Republicans argued about policies and funding issues. On October 27th, SNAP Benefits halted to forty-two million Americans in addition to the many federal workers going without paychecks during the shutdown. Food insecurity and hunger became an even harsher reality for more low-income households, seniors, and children. People face tough choices – food or medicine and bills, – even if the shutdown has ended for now.
I have private opinions regarding the debacle but the bottom line for me is that food is neither political nor social in nature as so eloquently in the above Desmond Tutu quote. Food is a basic human right for everyone. It’s not whether one is Democrat or Republican, wealthy or poor, but for everyone. No one, especially our seniors and children, should have to go hungry.
Opal’s Farm is committed to helping those affected by the government shutdown through our farm stand at the Funkytown Mindful Market and the “Doc” Sessions Community Center. In partnership with @Sustainable Food Center (SFC), we are launching
Double Up Fresh Bucks / Dólares Frescos, a temporary program to support farmer sales
and food access for families at our market. 💚
Double Up Fresh Bucks / Dólares Frescos provides [$30 or market amount] worth of
market dollars for shoppers to buy any food or drink item.
Any market shopper affected by loss of services and/or income due to the government
shutdown can receive Double Up Fresh Bucks / Dólares Frescos. Double Up Fresh
Bucks / Dólares Frescos expire on December 31, 2025.
How to Participate:
1️⃣ Visit us at Funkytown Mindful Market (1201 Wesleyan St.) on the 1st Saturday of the month and at Opal’s Farm Stand (“Doc” Sessions Community Center 201 S. Sylvania) every other Saturday from 1pm to 3pm
2️⃣Ask to receive Double Up Fresh Bucks / Double Up Dólares Fresco
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