A Year Without Jay

A year ago, I was sitting here typing away in my journal, like I am right now, when Austen came into the house and said my name.

Just the way he said it, I knew something was wrong.

But I was not prepared for what he was about to say.

“My dad died.”

I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it.

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. I don’t think either of us did.

This wasn’t something either of us had ever navigated before. And really, is anyone ever prepared for something like that?

I think I just stood there.

The rest of that day is kind of a blur.

We started packing a bag to make the three-hour drive to be with his mom, just throwing random things into it because we didn’t know how long we would be gone. We didn’t know what needed to be done. We didn’t know what came next.

We just knew that life had changed forever in that moment.

The blessing in all of it was that Jay went peacefully in his sleep.

No one expected it.

He was JUST here.

Causing chaos.

Changing plans.

Being Jay.

The day before.

Earlier that harvest season — or maybe it was planting season, they all kind of run together — Ern and I had gotten frustrated with him about something. Probably a plan. And we said what we had said a hundred times before:

“We’re going to miss this someday.”

After Jay died and we eventually had to come home and finish harvest, Ern and I were talking and he said something I’ll never forget.

“I know we always joked about missing him someday, but I never thought it would be this soon.”

Neither did I.

Not long after that, I was taking Ern back to the house to grab a different piece of equipment. We were at the intersection of G and GG when his phone gave him a voicemail notification.

One from Mikey.

And then one from Jay came through from a few days earlier.

As we pulled into the yard, Ern asked me if I wanted to listen to it with him.

So there we sat in the pickup, crying, listening to Jay’s voice.

He was just calling to see what the “plan” was.

Of course he was.

That man ALWAYS needed to know the plan.

Planting. Harvesting. Snowmobiling. Whatever we were doing, Jay wanted to know the plan.

And then, naturally, he’d probably change the plan.

Or have an idea about somebody else’s plan.

Or an opinion about how the plan should have been done in the first place.

Jay always had opinions.

Especially about people wearing “yogurt” pants.

We picked on him. A lot.

But underneath the tough-guy exterior, that man had the BIGGEST heart.

The biggest.

I remember one of the first times I really spent time around him.

I had gone to see Austen, and he was finishing up rebuilding Jay’s beloved “pink” tractor. It was the night they were finally going to start it back up.

Frog Dog was next to Austen, probably blowing cheap cigarette smoke in his face — IYKYK.

Jay was standing next to me.

I had a 16-ounce PBR Light in my hand and he had a Miller Lite.

That tractor fired up. Black smoke poured out.

And so did the tears in Jay’s eyes.

He hugged me and started telling me how proud he was of Austen.

I had only met him one other time before that.

And I remember thinking, Yep. Big softie.

That was Jay.

There was another time when he looked at me and said, “Thanks for making my son smile. I didn’t think I’d ever see him smile like that again.”

There were so many little moments like that over the years.

On the outside, he could be Mr. Tough Guy.

But his heart was always in the right place.

Now, if he got hurt? Watch out.

We were probably a little alike in that way.

Libras, you know.

I could probably fill an entire book with Jay — or “Slim,” as Austen lovingly called him — stories.

Twelve years of them.

Stories that, individually, might not seem like anything huge.

But together?

They made Jay, Jay.

You either loved him or you didn’t.

But really... you did.

We miss the random phone calls.

We miss him calling to see what the plan was.

We miss the way he would text everything in one word when he still had his flip phone.

We miss the way he would scroll “asspage,” which he claimed to hate even though we all knew he secretly loved it.

We miss his love of snowmobiling, side-by-side riding, farming, Miller Lite, and being the host with the most.

We miss the jokes.

The opinions.

The chaos.

The plan changing.

But most of all, we miss the way he loved his family.

I’ll never forget the day I looked at him and said, “You know why you and Leah fight so much, right?”

He looked at me and said, “NO.”

And I said, “Because she’s just like you.”

The look on his face when he realized I might actually be onto something was priceless.

Then there was the line he loved to use on me:

“You were so nice to me before you married my son. What happened?”

And Austen would immediately answer:

“She got access to the Slim joke tacklebox.”

And we’d all laugh.

Golly, I miss him.

It has now been a full year without those phone calls.

A planting season, a harvest, and another harvest.

My first birthday without him calling. He's the only parent that actually would call.

And maybe that’s part of the reason that day hit me harder than I expected.

Grief is such a wild ride.

I don’t think we talk enough about how much our bodies remember, either. Sometimes it feels like they know the date before our brains fully catch up.

As I write this, I have hives. My shoulders have been more sore than usual. I’ve been edgier. More emotional. A little off.

And then eventually it clicked.

Oh.

Right.

A year.

I think grief has a way of doing that.

It sneaks into ordinary days. A song. A voicemail. A piece of farm equipment. An intersection. A beer. A stupid joke. Someone asking what the plan is.

And suddenly you’re right back there.

But maybe there is a blessing buried somewhere inside that kind of grief too.

Because to miss someone this much means you got to love them that much.

And we did.

Cheers to Jay.

May the Miller Lites be cold, the trails be smooth, and wherever you are, I hope someone finally has a plan.

Although I’m pretty sure you’d change it anyway.