G. Sam Piatt
PDT Outdoors Writer
It was late afternoon pointing to Christmas Eve. I was driving Ky. 8 through South Portsmouth, a little time on my hands before the Gathering In that would take place at my home. The truck radio was on and tuned to the station that mixes the playing of old songs of the 50s with traditional Christmas carols.
I turned the volume up as the refrains of “Gonna Take a Sentimental Journey” drifted out of the dashboard speakers. That song was followed immediately by “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”
And suddenly nostalgia was dripping out of my pores. I wanted to go home for Christmas. For 60 years, from my youth up, I had always spent a portion of Christmas Eve at the home of my parents.
I wanted to see Mom and Dad, my brother and my sister.
I pulled into the lane leading to Mom and Dad’s house and parked in the familiar parking space just outside their front yard. I thought I saw the curtains in the living room window move and Mom peering out. In the background, I sensed Dad was leaning forward in his easy chair and craning his neck to see who had pulled in. I thought of the many times that I had trailered my boat in there to pick him up for a fishing trip to the river or one of the lakes.
The front door was locked but I had a key. I opened it, then hesitated for a moment on the porch. It seemed I could hear Dad say, “It’s George Samuel. Come in out of it!”
I stepped inside.
My goodness! It was as cold in there as it was outside.
I walked across the floor and heard the sound of my footsteps echoing through the empty house.
The kitchen table and chairs and cook stove were still there. I stood and looked at that table and my nostalgia was really playing games with reality. I could see the golden brown, steaming turkey in the middle of the table, surrounded by all the trimmings of those big Christmas Day dinners that Mom used to fix.
Dad was starting to carve the turkey as mom brought a platter of hot biscuits from the oven to the table. My, that sweet aroma.
There, in our younger years, sat brother and sister and me. Then, as images from the past continued flashing through my mind, Bonnie and I were there with our three children, and my brother and sister with their families, all gathered in to grandma and papaw’s house for the Christmas dinner.
O-o-o, those biscuits. Mom rolled out the dough with a rolling pin and cut it into rounds with the top of an empty tin can. Those biscuits seemed to just float out of the oven.
I walked over and pulled down the oven door, half expecting to see the biscuits browning. One of the rusty hinges broke and the oven door fell askance, never to close again.
Where have all the years gone?
I stood, held my face in my hands, and sobbed.
Why was I doing this to myself? Christmas is supposed to be a happy time.
THREE CEMETERIES
The Collier Cemetery is just a few hundred yards from the house. I stopped by to visit the graves of Mom and Dad and my bother Bootie. Later, I stopped by Mt. Zion and visited the grave of my sister Linda.
Father, mother, sister, brother … all gone now, except me.
Then I stopped at a third cemetery, Siloam, to visit the grave of our youngest son, Kendall, who was killed in an automobile accident last Dec. 29.
We grieve, but not as those who have no hope.
It was late evening when I passed a church with a manger scene out front. His birthday! I’d been so caught up in my own situation that I’d forgotten that that’s what Christmas is all about.
Son of God, son of man. Cut down in the prime of life. Died on a cross, the Scriptures tell us, for our sins.
But he conquered death. He arose from the grave.
And it was he himself who said, “He that liveth and believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”
Wow! Talk about a family reunion!
It was growing dark by the time I arrived at my home, which was surrounded by cars. Christmas lights sparkled on the front porch railings. A lighted tree that went to the ceiling was visible through the bay window.
I heard laughter as I crossed the porch and opened the front door.
Perhaps one day my children, suffering from nostalgia, will come to this house and find it cold and empty, and ask themselves, where have all the years gone?
Be that as it may, this Christmas 2015 – good Lord willing – we’re going to celebrate.
Merry Christmas!
Reach G. SAM PIATT at (606) 932-3619 or [email protected].
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