Uncle Ludwig

My uncle passed away today.  Uncle Ludwig was my dad's oldest brother.  He used to farm just a few miles north of us until dementia took away his ability to do the things he'd done for some 50 odd years.  He stayed on the farm, with his sister looking after him and Dad farming the land for a while after he couldn't farm, but eventually it got to be too much for my aunt, and Uncle Ludwig was moved to the senior's care center in town.

Uncle Ludwig was amazing at building, fixing, and restoring stuff.  The things I saw as we cleaned out his sheds last spring for a farm sale were beautiful.  There was old farm equipment, fixed up and painted bright colours.  There was stuff he had made, just thought up and built, like his metal press.  And all of his machinery and tools were kept in such nice condition.  

Once, when I was about ten or twelve years old, I somehow obtained an antique tractor seat.  It was all rusty and dented, but I took it to Uncle Ludwig and he sandblasted it and painted it for me.  All he wanted for his work was a cat, a good mouser, so we gave him one of our barn cats, named Elvis.  Every time we'd go over for a visit, Uncle Ludwig would have a story of Elvis' latest exploits for us.

We didn't know Uncle Ludwig wasn't well until his wife died.  Auntie Marlene died with little warning when I was in high school.  After that, Dad and his other siblings would check up on Uncle Ludwig, to make sure he was doing okay.  They started to notice that something wasn't right.  After Uncle Helmut had to show Uncle Ludwig how to cut hay, something he'd been doing for decades, the family sought medical advice.  We eventually learned that Uncle Ludwig had dementia.  He still loved to farm, but he couldn't do everything anymore, so Dad agreed to sharecrop the land.  For some reason, I guess I didn't understand that this wasn't a temporary thing.  I figured it would eventually all go back to normal.

The day I realized that Uncle Ludwig wasn't going to get better, I was at home, relaxing during my summer break.  Dad was baling hay at Uncle Ludwig's place.  He called Mom and asked her to bring me to the field.  When we got there, Dad asked me to rake the hay.  The briefest of glances at the field told me that the hay had already been raked and that Dad had already started baling.  Why was he asking me to rake hay that had already been raked?  Dad saw me glance at the field and offered an explanation.  Uncle Ludwig had already raked the hay, but he had gotten confused and Dad couldn't bale the hay as it was.  I took a closer look at the field then.  The hay had, indeed, been raked, but the rows were...non-existent, curving all over the place, joining together, and generally looking chaotic.  I had to redo the entire field.  Some parts were impossible to fix and I was close to tears several times trying to get through.  Dad told me to just fix it so he could bale it.  It didn't have to be perfect.  That's the day I realized Uncle Ludwig would never be the same again.  I was also the last time Uncle Ludwig got to do field work.

Even with the dementia stealing his memories, Uncle Ludwig was still the sweetest man.  When he could still live on the farm, he'd always have a dog around.  No matter which dog it was, he always called it "Pooch".  I didn't always know how to relate to Uncle Ludwig when he was confused, but I loved him.  He'll be missed.