A story I wrote for an old blog in 2011 . . .
The old man was still stiff when he woke. With great effort, he managed to prop himself up on his elbow and lift himself to a sitting position on his bed. The pain shot down his spine. This was the fifth day; it wasn’t getting any better.
He had just finished pulling on his clothes when his son called. “You want to help me cut some wood? We’re out,” The younger man said.
Over the years the old man had learned that keeping active was often the cure for aches and pains. And besides, he had a belly full of ambition that the years just couldn’t use up. His neighbor lady was out of wood, too, he thought; he’d bring her enough to get her by for a day or two. And besides, he’d promised her he would bring the Sunday paper.
Clenching his teeth against the pain, he pulled on his heavy coat and boots, tucked the paper under his arm and climbed into his old pick up truck.
He loved the sound of the chain saw cutting through the wood. And this was cherry; it would burn hot and long. As he worked with his son in the cold morning, he almost forgot the burning pain in his back. The two men worked together, the steam pumping from their mouths, for over an hour. When they were finished, hefty piles of logs filled the beds of their trucks.
Spotting a few scrap slices of wood on the snow, the old man bent to pick them up and threw them in his truck’s cab, smiling. She would like these, he thought. She’ll think they’re pretty.
Minutes later, he was knocking at her door. “Hope you got a pot of coffee going,” he said. “That cold out there is damp.”
She poured coffee and put a pot of chili on the stove to warm as he told her all the local gossip. “I didn’t come for the lunch!” he protested as she put a steamy bowl in front of him. But he ate it greedily and said, “That’s the best chili I ever had.”
They hauled in the logs together and as she lit a fire in the kitchen’s wood stove, he headed back out to the truck. When he returned, he set four little slabs of wood on her counter top and said, “You might want to take pictures of these. Pretty aren’t they?”
“That red in the center is called heart wood,” he told her, “and this stuff on the edge is sap wood. See the rings in the middle?”
He drank another half cup of coffee and pointed out things in the paper that interested him. Then he slowly pulled himself from the chair, groaning. “I think I’ll call doc tomorrow,” he said. “My back’s not better at all.”
She watched through the window as he walked back to his truck, sorry for his pain, and grateful for the wood, with its heart, and for her neighbor, and his heart. And she was warmed by the kindness and the fire.