It's Almost Cotton Pickin' Time

Another year of the cotton growing season is almost over.  The lucky ones will harvest quick before the end of the year.  It will be dry enough to get the cotton out of the field and on to the gin.  But for now, the cotton plants are full and green, full of bowls, and limbs which spread wide from the weight of the bowls.  If the plants appear solid, leaving no space in between, those are the healthy crops. The fields appear a sold green with no visible rows in between.  The high cotton crops.  High and full.  Walking in high cotton. 

I remember my Dad viewing out the kitchen door, everyday, sitting, almost watching the plants to fill in.  He loved to talk about it.  He would peer with one eye and his hand pointing, "see that", he said.  That year, his last, was a high cotton crop.  He wasn't walking in it physically, but in his mind he was standing 20 feet out, seeing green from all directions.  That year, was a big one, four bales per acre.  He waited for the harvest.  He gazed at the snow white modules, almost too many to count, and his job was done.  He passed on Dec 16, 2004.  That day forward he walks in high cotton every day.  He would prefer that to streets of gold.

It's hard to believe it's been five years since his passing.  Each year the crops are planted and if allowed by the weather and care, they go through their whole routine, but it's not the same.  Nothing will ever be the same.  It's almost as if the cotton knows there is something different.  Why is no one driving up and down the turn rows, slowly, every morning, and every afternoon, waiting until the sun is just right to view the plants and blooms, from the right direction.  A path around each field will form from the repetition.  Yes, his gaze from the window, as if reflecting on a famous art form.  Each day, the same path will be taken, or in reverse. 

I love it there, next to the fields.  There is a peaceful feeling outside.  Whether the hot sunshine is shining on my face or dark rumbling clouds are gathering on the horizon.  Yes, in West Texas, there is always weather.  Standing outside, it's as if my Father is still watching the weather, maybe even watching over us.  The weather is much more than temperature, wind speed, direction, rainfall, thunderstorms, hail, or clear and sunny.  It is unpredictable, from one minute to the next.  In the Spring, the ground will need moisture for the cotton seed to sprout.  Then, of course, more moisture is necessary for the actual plant to form.  Oh, but for a nice, slow, seeping rainfall for a few days.  Then towards the end of the growing season, the cotton will invariably need hot, dry weather and it will begin long slow rains, like last October in 2008, eight inches of rain in West Texas. How typically, unpredictable.  It's been dry this year, so far, but it's almost a bad omen to talk about it.  The field is turning solid green just as it did in 2004.  The first year since then.  Yes, maybe "everything" will be okay.  Please let me hear that, "everything will be okay".  The cotton is looking good, my Mother, really needs a good crop.  It's been five years, the pain is still the same, just a bit more controllable, easier to hide. 

"Don't take it too hard", he said to me, about his death.  He knew it was going to break my heart.  We had this way about us, Father and daughter.  No words needed to pass.  Such comfort, I fear, I will never know again.  It was an unconditional love that penetrated each other.  I have been truly blessed.