The Christian Appeal (October 1999)
Issue Theme: Wisdom for the Journey

I pulled the car to a slow stop near the old bridge. They told me I would be shocked. I was. The house looked old. The creamed stucco was now terribly stained and chipped. The tree near the front porch was barely alive. The front yard was all earth now, brown and dusty. 

The old place was a haven for sheep. It had been a haven for me once, a place to come in out of the cold. 

I leaned my head against the car window and saw once again those warm summer evening meals.

On the table were bowls of cornbread and beans, milk in blue glasses boasting pictures of Shirley Temple, plates of thickly sliced tomatoes, onions, and long, thin asparagus tips that grew wild nearby. That dreadful asparagus was as wild along the irrigation ditches as Johnson grass was in the fields. I could almost smell the bacon and potatoes frying together along with the aroma of the coffee boiling campfire style.

Cars began to drive up and park around the sheep. Ghost-like figures stepped out and went inside. Faint music began to swell from the old living room.

"There’s a land that is fairer than day; and by faith we can see it afar.”

But then it was gone.

I got out of the car to walk by the side of the house to see the old water tank we used to pull with the tractor. I wanted to check out the Holly Hocks and see the bees that used to swarm nearby, hide themselves in the petals, suck the flowers’ juices, and sail backwards into space.

There were no bees. No Holly Hocks either. Just a hot, morning sun.

An old man tending sheep appeared out of nowhere carrying a cane and walking with a limp. Startled, I asked, “Have you been here long?”

“Yes,” he said, “been here a long time.”

I just looked at him. I didn’t really care what his name was or where he came from. I turned to walk away. He pushed through the sheep, head turned to avoid the blinding sun, and with frowning brow asked, “You new here?”

“No” I said, “been here a long time.”

I walked slowly back to the car and noticed a road runner following close by. I couldn’t believe it. This crafty bird we saw only in flashes, like a falling star that was here one moment and gone before we could tell what it looked like, was now by my side.

It was as though he knew all about our childhood games. We used to steal bird eggs from their nests. We made our own bird nest out of wire, hay, dirt, and grass. Then we set out to fill our nest with all the different bird eggs.

Oriole and mockingbird nests were easy to find. Most of them were in the tops of the big cottonwood trees across the street that were even now still green and shedding cotton across the road and into the pasture.

Once I found a dove’s nest in an apricot tree about a half mile down the road. Dove eggs were pearly white with a touch of gray and were very hard to find.

Once we’d collected the eggs, we would put them in our own nest and put the nest in our bedroom window where the hot sun would beam down on them. We always hoped that they would hatch right before our eyes. They never did.

We found the nests of a number of varieties of birds, but we never found a road runner’s nest. No one did. But now, here he was, leading me right to his nest snug under the bridge, as though it didn’t matter anymore.

It didn’t.

A cloud billowed up sending the smells of rain and dust into the air. I got into the car as a large raindrop that sounded like hail hit the windshield. Soon another came, you know, much like popcorn when the first grain of corn pops, and then another and another. And my tears came. Like the rain, they came and came.

I began to drive off, reluctant to leave but anxious to get away. Blinded by tears, I drove faster and faster. It was dark, and I was cold, and I couldn’t see, but still I drove faster and faster.

And then it was over.

It was a dream.

For a long time I lay on my back with tears running into my ears and onto the pillow. I was weak with exhaustion, totally immersed in grief and gratitude, grateful for so many things—for a father who would sing instead of drink when times were hard, for parents who enjoyed good health for a long time, for parents who weren’t rich but lived a rich life, for parents who surrounded themselves with friends who helped teach us more about God.

I was grateful for friends who weren’t perfect, and not even right sometimes, but who placed their trust in the One who is right all the time. I was grateful for friends who in the midst of great tragedy trusted in the God whose heart, like the sun, warms the whole earth.

And I was grateful for a better understanding of God’s grace—grace that covers so much, grace that covers multitudes of wrongdoings done out of ignorance like robbing birds’ nests, and like hurting each other and hating ourselves. Grace that is a cushion to protect us from ourselves when we see ourselves as we really are. Grace that covers a decayed life as a filling covers a decayed tooth or as a bandage covers an open wound and helps it to heal.

I was grateful to God for watching over my parents who lived in a small corner of this planet for such a short time and inhabit it no longer.

And I was grateful for the comfort of knowing that you can indeed go home again. After all, going home, really home, is what the journey is all about.

Copyright © 2001 The Christian Appeal