It was just a riding lawn mower.

A John Deere, green and gold, nothing special, except that you can sit when you mow the yard.

My father’s eyes lit up when he saw it, a gift from his family to replace the riding lawn mower he’d built from scratch with junk parts over one summer to mow the acre of lawn at our cabin in Wisconsin’s Indianhead.

On the John Deere, Dad was nothing short of hell on wheels. He didn’t just mow; he stalked that summer grass. It was the first thing he did every weekend when we arrived, no matter how late the hour on Friday, no matter how long his day at work.

In his straight lines and sharp blades were life lessons from growing up a farmer. In the cocktail nestled snugly in the cupholder rode his belief that even in work there should be a little bit of fun.

More than once Dad fell victim to the low-hanging branch, coming into the cabin wearing a bump on his forehead and a sheepish grin. Then he’d head down to the lake, where he’d lounge in the water with me and talk about all the critters he’d seen while out in the grass.

His 15 grandchildren clamored for rides with him on the John Deere. He’d let them sit on his lap and off they’d go, the Silver Fox and his adoring charge, to the driveway and beyond, the paved circle, lined with cabins. He’d drive until they were out of sight, and then get off and let them drive, always extracting a promise: “Don’t tell Grandma about this.”

The last time I saw Dad on the John Deere was about 3 years before he died. The depression that would ultimately kill him had already laid him so low that he rarely spoke or left his chair on the porch overlooking the lake. The grass grew long and the John Deere rarely left the garage.

One weekend when we were visiting, my youngest son, who at the time was 5 and knew nothing of depression but only that “Big Grandpa” was crabby all the time now, had spent several hours working up the nerve to approach his chair.

“Grandpa, can I have a ride on the John Deere?”

Where years of therapy, pills and electric shocks had failed, a 5-year-old’s request succeeded. To my son’s delight, Grandpa got up out of his chair, grabbed the keys to the tractor and, with a hint of a conspiratorial smile, beckoned Andy to join him.

Soon the two were on their way around the circle, and for those precious few moments, the depression was gone, held at bay by a small child’s wish and a simple farm machine.

After Dad died in 2004, we sold the cabin.

But before we turned over the keys, my husband bought a one-way airline ticket to Wisconsin. He rented a moving truck, loaded up the John Deere, and drove it 1,100 miles around six states and a couple of Great Lakes to bring it to New Jersey, where we lived, so it stayed in the family.

We could’ve bought a new one for what it cost us to get it to the East Coast.

After all, it’s just a riding lawn mower.