My Wife Left Me the Farm and a List of Instructions. The Last One Was the Hardest to Follow

My name is Harold Whitaker, but nobody has called me Harold since my mother passed. Around here I’m just Hal.

I’m 68 years old, and I’ve milked cows on this farm outside Viroqua, Wisconsin, for forty-six years.

Two hundred and twelve acres. Sixty Holsteins. A red barn my grandfather raised with his own hands in 1951.

And for forty-one of those years, I had June.

She died two winters ago. Her heart. The doctor said it was quick, like that was supposed to be the good news.

Maybe it was. I still don’t know.

What I do know is that a week after the funeral, I found a yellow legal pad in the drawer next to the stove.

On the first page, in June’s handwriting, it said:

“Hal — things you will forget without me.”

I sat down at the kitchen table and read it four times before I could read it properly.

Number one: “Call Tom Brandt about the estate planning. The trust papers are in the gray file box. Don’t put it off like you put off the dentist.”

Number two: “The life insurance policy is in the same box. The beneficiary still says your brother. Fix it.”

Number three: “Kevin will tell you to sell to the developers. Do not sign anything until you get a real farmland appraisal. This land is worth more than they will ever say out loud.”

Number four: “Your Medicare supplement renews in October. Read the letter. Don’t just throw it away because it’s long.”

Number five: “Feed the barn cats even when you’re mad at them.”

She knew me. Forty-one years will do that.

I followed every one of those instructions, one by one, like a man working down a field row.

I called Tom. We set up the trust so the farm doesn’t get eaten alive by probate when I’m gone. I changed the beneficiary on the life insurance. I paid for an independent appraisal, and June was right, of course. The developer from Madison had offered me less than half of what the land was really worth.

I even read the whole Medicare letter.

I kept feeding those cats.

By the end of the first year, I had crossed out eight lines on that yellow pad.

There was just one left.

Number nine.