Ed Gulley was always a major presence in my life in the time that I knew him. I saw him almost every day in the four months between his diagnosis and his death.

He died a couple of weeks ago, and after the funeral my life has gotten frantic, especially with the fund-raising campaign to send the refugee Sakler Moo, a member of the refugee soccer team I sponsor,  to the Albany Academy.

That work with Sakler and some of the other refugees has kept me running back and forth to Albany and I guess I haven’t had time to think of Ed much.

I text or call Carol every day and check on her, and we have had her over to dinner. Right now, I think she wants to be alone and needs to be alone. Maria and I want to stay in close touch with her, we also want to give her the space she needs.

This morning, it was very warm and I got up to water our two new Paper Burch trees. I was standing next to one tree, and lookedto the right and saw Ed Gulley’s Goose sculpture one of his best and one of his last.

Suddenly, Ed’s loss seemed to hit me right in the heart. We always loved Ed’s art works, Maria was so involved in his creating them. They are all over our farm, wooden flowers, wind chimes, the Tin Man.

He is a difficult presence to replace, a great and buoyant spirit, and I miss him. It hasn’t quite sunk in that I will never see him again. The Goose brings me back to the Ed Gulley I want to remember, the one who built a bridge to our back woods and hauled it down the pasture on his back. The Ed Gulley who built a bench for us to sit on by the stream.

The Ed Gulley who came to our Open Houses, sold his farm art and lectured everyone he meet about the need to drink whole milk and raise the price farmers get paid for it. His milk lecture.

We got a great kick out of each other, he respected my mind greatly and relished our talks, and so did I. This almost always puzzled me, we were so different, yet so much alike.

I was not comfortable at the County Fair, looking at the lovely memorial his family built to him in one of the cow. I just felt sad, it was not the same as Ed, and I can hardly imagine what Carol was feeling.

I think the Goose shows how skillful Ed was at bringing animals and nature into his art, using tractor and other farm parts to give his work it’s authenticity and feeling. The Goose was largely made of blades from a hay chopper, Ed never quite got the legs right so I had to prop the Goose up with a wooden board.

He was so close to the natural world, and to the mystery of animals. When Ed was diagnosed he told me he finally felt free, to leave behind the hard world of the dairy farmer and work on his art. For a week or so, he worked furiously on his art, and then he couldn’t. That was the heartbreaking part, in one sense.

The Goose seems serious and dignified to me, I love seeing it out there by the road, it can  honk at anybody it chooses to honk at.

There it shall stay.

Everybody has their own ideas about the afterlife and heaven, I would love to believe in both but mostly do not. Ed had his time on the earth, and I have mine, and I see no reason why we would all live on forever in one way or another. Who promised me that?

Heaven would be more crowded than Manhattan  is at rush hour. Do I really want to hang out with all of those people?

Ed told me he would come down and talk to me from time to time, but I don’t think he’s been down here yet.

It was my job to tell Ed’s story as he lay dying, that was what he asked of me. It is my job now to try to remember him in a meaningful way. The Goose is my contact point, my channel with Ed. If he is up there, the Goose will let me know.

As it is, she (or he) is a great comfort to me, dignified and grateful and rusty like an ancient tractor.

How you doing, Ed. A tough son-of-a-bitch you be, you got two rows of tits on either s–i–i–i–d–e.

Ed tried to teach me this line a hundred times, but I could never get it right while he was alive. Ever since he died, I  get it right every time.

Maybe we are talking to each other.