I’ll Be Home for Christmas is one of the few tear-jerker Christmas songs worth respect. Being away at Christmas is almost as hard as having your loved ones away.
When we first moved to South Dakota, we never left Aberdeen in winter. We couldn’t afford to fly, and we balked at crossing snow-encrusted mountains to visit family on the West Coast.
Now we have a different problem. Our kids are starting to move away. This year, we’re lucky to have all six home, but I know it won’t always be this way, especially as they start families of their own.
Being apart from loved ones on Christmas is not new to me. My little brother left home at 17 and never moved back. He got involved in substance abuse and disappeared for large chunks of his life. Every once in a while, he’d resurface and we’d see him for a while -- but then he was gone again.
I always thought he would move back, but my parents didn’t. Not long after he left, they knocked down the wall of his bedroom and expanded theirs.
This summer my family was together to scatter my dad’s ashes, and I saw a lot of my brother. It was great. He got to know my kids. He taught them how to hit targets with nails blown out of PVC pipe, and how to do the balancing fork trick with the lighted match: All those fun and dangerous uncle antics they’ve missed all these years.
I wrote letters to my brother at whatever his last address was, not knowing whether he received them or not. Turns out, he did.
“I may not answer your letters,” he told me, “But I always enjoy them. Don’t think I don’t read them.”
But this summer when it was time to say goodbye, he said he would no longer be able to get mail general delivery -- his last known address. And he was giving up phone service. So there is no way to contact him. And I haven’t heard from him since then.
I know I’m not alone. Many have relatives caught in one problem or another who disappear and reappear at erratic times. It’s hard to communicate, hard to get through.
Sometimes, getting through to God is like getting through to people like my brother. We know God’s there. But we don’t hear from Him a whole lot. We’re not really sure of His last address. We pray, but we can’t tell He hears.
Christmas is one time we do hear from Him. A nativity scene down the street, lyrics from a carol in a store. A silvery Christmas card in the mail. He’s checking in.
But I think it’s really the opposite. We’re the missing relative. He doesn’t hear from us a whole lot. He’s home for the holidays, standing there, and we’re fiddling with our personal DVD player. “Hold on a minute” is our permanent delay tactic.
We have more and more sophisticated ways of putting Him off and shutting Him out. We can iPod Him out, XM radio Him out, cell phone Him out, Nintendo Him out. We close our ears in so many cool and inventive ways. We keep the noise going -- and expand our own bedroom into his territory. We sure don’t want Him coming home and taking our toys!
But at Christmas, despite all the noise, His voice still manages to get through.
After this last ice storm, my daughter spent a week in a dark, cold apartment before the roads were clear and she could get the two inches of ice off her car. Finally, she was able to start on her way home. I worried about road conditions. I worried about her car. The temperature was 10 degrees. Cell phone towers were down. What if something happened?
The time came when she should have been home, and she wasn’t. As I walked around the corner of the house, there, at long last was my daughter with rosy, beaming face! I felt I should grab her and never let her go.
Because of the parable of the prodigal son, I know that’s how God feels when, after waiting and waiting, He gets a letter, a look, a prayer – and knows we’re finally coming home for Christmas.
When we first moved to South Dakota, we never left Aberdeen in winter. We couldn’t afford to fly, and we balked at crossing snow-encrusted mountains to visit family on the West Coast.
Now we have a different problem. Our kids are starting to move away. This year, we’re lucky to have all six home, but I know it won’t always be this way, especially as they start families of their own.
Being apart from loved ones on Christmas is not new to me. My little brother left home at 17 and never moved back. He got involved in substance abuse and disappeared for large chunks of his life. Every once in a while, he’d resurface and we’d see him for a while -- but then he was gone again.
I always thought he would move back, but my parents didn’t. Not long after he left, they knocked down the wall of his bedroom and expanded theirs.
This summer my family was together to scatter my dad’s ashes, and I saw a lot of my brother. It was great. He got to know my kids. He taught them how to hit targets with nails blown out of PVC pipe, and how to do the balancing fork trick with the lighted match: All those fun and dangerous uncle antics they’ve missed all these years.
I wrote letters to my brother at whatever his last address was, not knowing whether he received them or not. Turns out, he did.
“I may not answer your letters,” he told me, “But I always enjoy them. Don’t think I don’t read them.”
But this summer when it was time to say goodbye, he said he would no longer be able to get mail general delivery -- his last known address. And he was giving up phone service. So there is no way to contact him. And I haven’t heard from him since then.
I know I’m not alone. Many have relatives caught in one problem or another who disappear and reappear at erratic times. It’s hard to communicate, hard to get through.
Sometimes, getting through to God is like getting through to people like my brother. We know God’s there. But we don’t hear from Him a whole lot. We’re not really sure of His last address. We pray, but we can’t tell He hears.
Christmas is one time we do hear from Him. A nativity scene down the street, lyrics from a carol in a store. A silvery Christmas card in the mail. He’s checking in.
But I think it’s really the opposite. We’re the missing relative. He doesn’t hear from us a whole lot. He’s home for the holidays, standing there, and we’re fiddling with our personal DVD player. “Hold on a minute” is our permanent delay tactic.
We have more and more sophisticated ways of putting Him off and shutting Him out. We can iPod Him out, XM radio Him out, cell phone Him out, Nintendo Him out. We close our ears in so many cool and inventive ways. We keep the noise going -- and expand our own bedroom into his territory. We sure don’t want Him coming home and taking our toys!
But at Christmas, despite all the noise, His voice still manages to get through.
After this last ice storm, my daughter spent a week in a dark, cold apartment before the roads were clear and she could get the two inches of ice off her car. Finally, she was able to start on her way home. I worried about road conditions. I worried about her car. The temperature was 10 degrees. Cell phone towers were down. What if something happened?
The time came when she should have been home, and she wasn’t. As I walked around the corner of the house, there, at long last was my daughter with rosy, beaming face! I felt I should grab her and never let her go.
Because of the parable of the prodigal son, I know that’s how God feels when, after waiting and waiting, He gets a letter, a look, a prayer – and knows we’re finally coming home for Christmas.
Donna Marmorstein Dec. 2005 All Rights Reserved
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