The following was written eight years ago but the memories, how they linger and, perhaps, like some of the melancholier music that reminds of Christmas past, may the following bring needed pause for reflection in this otherwise very busy season.
There’s something significantly special about the mere mention of home at this time of year that strikes an empathetic chord, strums the emotional heart strings and replays the melody of childhood memories.
Whether it’s Bing Crosby’s famous rendition of the most requested song at Christmas U.S.O.’s – when the soldiers of World War II learned they would not be home for Christmas after all; or a 16-year-old boy’s longing to be reunited with his mom – which will never happen; or saying the two most difficult words in any language at the bedside of a dear loved one who is leaving for the final time, home is where the heart longs to be.
With perhaps his signature “I’ll be Home for Christmas”, Crosby was said to have accomplished more for military morale than anyone else of that era.
As it turns out, the tender place touched in the hearts of Americans, both soldiers and civilians, who were then in the depths of the war, was also the reason the astronauts of Gemini 7, in December of 1965, requested NASA Mission Control to have that very tune played as they returned home from the longest flight in the U.S. space program.
With all of the technological advancement and engineering sophistication that can permit highly-trained specialists piloting spacecraft to hurtle through the darkness for the first ever rendezvous somewhere in outer space, yet there’s a stronger pull and deeply embedded something that tugs at the heart – hard-wired for home.
Ironically enough – like the sixteen-year-old Buck Ram who actually wrote “I’ll be Home for Christmas”, the lyrics written when he was a homesick college student – another sixteen-year old literally showed up on our doorstep early this month of November.
We’ve been housing him ever since and are now pursuing Foster Care.
The other night he watched the movie Antwone Fisher, and he cried.
The hard-exterior shell of this tough young kid – some of life’s hardest experiences making his heart impervious to the assaults of all who would scale the walls to reach inside – began to crumble.
It was the moment in the movie when Fisher – played by Denzel Washington – is reunited with his mother and together they’re sharing Thanksgiving Dinner.
The 16-year-old in our story cried because that won’t ever be possible again.
In just a few days from now his mother will have been dead one year.
They never got to say ‘good-bye’.
His father doesn’t know he exists.
And this very week, the week of Thanksgiving, when family will gather for the traditional game of touch football followed by the laughter that will ring from the walls even long after the last piece of pie and all have returned to their own homes, this week will likely be the home-going of my wife’s dear sister following her long battle with cancer.
There is within the human heart a homing-device and it is always drawing, forever tugging, and faithfully leading us home.
Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas.
Beautifully said and so true. A blessed Thanksgiving to all in your extended family
Thank you Joan. And a most memorable Thanksgiving to you and all of yours.
Well David, you made me cry. When you get as old as I, you definitely cannot go back to your childhood, except in memory, and that brings tears.
Christmas was always a happy time for me growing up, during the Great Depression.
Even with no money in my parents pockets, Mother managed to make gifts that brightened my holiday.
God bless you for brightening a young mans life with your love.
Thank you Evelyn. What precious memories you must indeed have of a no-doubt busy mother who nevertheless made time and toys for her daughter! A most wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas to you!
Your words are a beacon of light and a hope for home in a time so often darkened by commercialism and cynicism – and I thank you for them.
Thank you John. Thought of you just the other day when I read, and then wrote, of Lochburn’s need of basketballs and how you were able to make baseballs – and memories – happen for the boys of Tillicum. May your hearth bring warmth to your home and all who gather there this most wonderful season of all.