Four States: Chapter Thirty Three – My Father’s Hands

Mid January 2006

In the days after the trial, Dad slipped into a quiet, distracted heaviness I had never seen in him before. Normally he was outgoing, engaging, the kind of man who walked into a room with a smile on his face. But now he drifted through the farm in a solemn, introspective haze. Most days, he retreated to the alpaca barn and stayed there for hours, alone with his thoughts and the soft, curious company of the animals.

The barn itself was lively—almost cheerful in contrast to him. The alpacas hummed constantly, their long necks stretching over the pen railings to sniff at anyone who walked by, especially if they suspected food might be involved. Dad had installed bright fluorescent lights along the front of the barn earlier that year, and under their cool glow the alpacas’ eyes looked glossy and alert. They always made the place feel alive.

But even with the animals’ energy, there was a weight in the air. Mom didn’t talk about the trial, and neither did he. I wanted to bring it up—I could see how deeply it was affecting him—but something in his posture, in the slow way he worked, told me this wasn’t the moment. The silence between the us wasn’t avoidance as much as a kind of unspoken understanding: we were carrying something heavy, and none of us knew how to set it down yet.

One night, during the third week of January, I was watching a TV show where the main character’s father died alone in his barn. The  scene hit harder than I expected. It wasn’t the drama of it—it was the loneliness. The father collapsed in the shadows, and no one knew until it was too late. When I glanced outside and saw the barn lights still shining across the yard, a sharp fear pierced through me. Dad had been spending so much time out there by himself. What if something happened to him and no one knew? The idea, irrational or not, wouldn’t let go.

The January air felt cold and thin when I stepped outside. I walked through the soft grass, my breath forming small clouds in front of me. The barn stood there—fluorescents humming, alpacas murmuring inside—bright and alive against the winter darkness. It was probably nothing. I knew it was probably nothing. But fear isn’t rational.

I walked inside and leaned casually against the first alpaca pen, trying not to look like someone who had just briskly fast-walked down out of dread. Dad was up on the far side of the barn, installing new food bins along the top railing of one of the pens. When he noticed me, he paused and squinted as if he could sense something unsettled in my face.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said, though it came out too quickly and not nearly convincingly enough. He gave me a puzzled look, shrugged, and turned back to his work.

Something in me cracked open. It all came spilling out before I could stop it.

“Dad, I came down to see if you’re okay. I don’t know what I’d do if anything ever happened to you.”

He froze. For a moment he just stayed there, his hand resting on the rail, the fluorescent lights catching the lines on his face. Then he turned around slowly, and his expression softened in a way I’ll never forget. “I’ll be okay, son.” His voice was gentle, reassuring. It was exactly what I needed to hear.

I explained the TV show, how the storyline spooked me, how it made me imagine the worst. He let out a short chuckle. “Thanks. I think?” That broke the tension, and we both laughed.

But then his tone shifted—honest, grounded, fatherly.

“If anything ever happened to me,” he said quietly, “I know you and Chris would take care of your mom. And besides…the thing about being a Christian is that death isn’t the end.” His eyes glistened under the harsh barn lights. “We’ll see each other again.”

It hit me hard. My throat tightened, but I held it together—barely. It wasn’t a dramatic crying moment, more of a silent swallow of emotion, like something inside me was trembling.

Dad had always been my hero. Growing up, we lived comfortably but didn’t have a lot of extra money. Toys outside of birthdays or Christmas were extremely rare. I remember being seven or eight when he came home one random evening with the Lego Cosmic Cruiser 6890 in his hands. No holiday. No special occasion. Just my dad surprising me. I asked him, “Why did you get this for me?” He looked down, smiled, and said, “Because I love you.” That moment cemented something in me.

He had the same approach with discipline. Education mattered to him, and if our grades slipped, he grounded us—or gave us a whooping when needed. He wasn’t harsh; he was consistent. We weren’t allowed to watch TV at certain times until we brought our grades back up. As teenagers, when we pushed boundaries, he reeled us back in and reminded us we were becoming young men. And as adults, he became my movie buddy, my Christian mentor, and my dearest friend.

But I had also started noticing he was getting older. Once, we were mudding the ceiling in my bedroom—my enormous ceiling with freshly sanded drywall and a plywood floor still waiting for carpet. We used long straw brooms dipped in thick joint compound to create texture across the ceiling. Dad worked hard, as always, but the next day he wasn’t fine like he used to be. He walked stiffly for days. Watching him, a realization settled into me: he wasn’t invincible. My grandpa Slatt had worked on the farm into his late seventies until he had a stroke. Dad was following a similar path—working and sacrificing until his body finally said, “enough.”

We must have talked for a long time that night in the barn because eventually Mom came marching in, looking irritated. She had been calling for us in the house and no one answered. The alpacas perked up when she arrived—some already lying down and trying to sleep, others rising slowly to their feet, ears pointed in her direction.

“What in the world are you two doing down here?” she asked. “Do you know what time it is?”

We didn’t.

“We’ve been having deep conversations about death,” I said, deadpan. Mom didn’t hesitate. She immediately launched into how she wanted her and Dad to be cremated, how she wanted their funerals arranged, and where she wanted their ashes scattered. I just stared at her. “Thanks for letting me know, Mom! Let’s hope I don’t have to make any plans for you or Dad anytime soon.”

“I know, right?” she said, and we all laughed.

Mom was always good at lightening the mood. We helped Dad clean up and walked back to the house together, the cold January air nipping at our faces. I went to bed that night with an unexpected sense of peace. It was one of those conversations every family needs to have—and I had no idea how soon we would need it.

In the quiet days that followed, something inside me began connecting everything—the trial, Dad’s heaviness, the barn conversation, the sudden awareness of our mortality. It wasn’t a single moment of clarity but a culmination—a slow gathering of everything we were experiencing. Dad gradually returned to his lighter, more familiar self, and the house felt warmer again.

As I reflected on the year so far, I kept coming back to the work Dad and I were doing together. We had torn down old buildings, raised new ones, and kept chipping away at the farmhouse. The two-story addition was the biggest project we tackled—just him and me, building something that held both our fingerprints. Every board, every wall, every nail became part of our shared history. One day, when I’m an old man walking through that barn, I’ll put my hand on a beam we lifted together and remember the weight of it, the rhythm of Dad’s hammer beside mine. I’ll open the farmhouse door and think back to the day we hung it. That work became sacred to me.

The barn itself was simple—fluorescent lights overhead, gravel underfoot, the smell of alpacas and wood mingling in the cool air. But it became holy ground because of our conversation there.

Working beside my earthly father helped me understand my heavenly Father more deeply. The realization came gradually, layer by layer, in the same way we built the farm. Jesus came as a carpenter. Carpenters build with intention. Nothing simply appears—not barns, not houses, not fences. Someone designs them, shapes them, cares for them. Our farm was built with purpose. The world is, too.

Dad and I often talked theology while we worked. Earlier in my memoir I wrote about how we had been reevaluating our beliefs—challenging the definitions we inherited from the church sect we once belonged to. Words like faith, justification, and sanctification took on new meaning. These weren’t about works or obedience anymore; they opened a path toward grace and mercy. We were renewing our minds together, building something sturdier than drywall and timber.

By the end of that third week of January, I realized that in all the heaviness and reflection, I had grown closer to both of my father’s—earthly and heavenly. I loved my dad deeply. He loved God, loved his family, and had a remarkably healthy outlook on his mortality. I’m grateful I recognized the importance of those days while I was still living them. I carried those moments forward, held tight to the work we did side by side, and treasured the sacred ordinary long before I knew how much it would mean later.