Minnesota Farmer

A few years ago an older friend told me “If I knew I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself.”  Many years ago my grand father told me that in his body “If it works, it hurts, if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t hurt.”  As I get older, I am starting to understand.

I knew a woman once who just decided to not get up one day.  The doctors could find no reason for her not being able to walk, she just chose not to.  There are times, especially when a storm is coming in, that I have trouble getting to sleep because of all the places I hurt, but then I fall asleep and nothing hurts until morning.

Work on the farm stresses the body.  Things need to be lifted, hauled, pushed or moved, most of the time by using the body.  Many of those things are large and/or heavy.  After the deed is done, the body can start to hurt.  Age, with its accumulation of stressors, adds to the pain.  Things that moved easily when I was younger, now do not move so easily.

When all of the pain gets to seem too much, I have only to remember two friends of mine who are living with the after effects of polio.  Neither of them complains about pain, and yet each and every movement could be their last as their bodies struggle with muscles that will never really be whole.  Somehow they continue to move on.  They have not gone to bed to stay, and neither will I.  Pain tells me that I am alive.

Consider the turtle, who never gets anywhere if he does not stick his neck out.  So it is as you get older, you never get anywhere without a little pain.So keep moving, there is a lot to see out there and a little pain just reminds you of the effort expended to get there.

Michael