Tonight I am sitting on the couch by myself. We have an empty nest in our house these days as all of our kids have grown up and moved out and moved on. Nights like tonight make me miss the sounds of when they were all at home…the laughing…the stories…sometimes, even the tears...the pitter-pat of little footsteps…the beautiful smells from the kitchen promising that something good was on the way. The hugs…the kisses…the smiles…the memories.
For some reason tonight as I sit here and reminisce, I don’t want to watch another ballgame or hear about the weather forecast. I am 60 years old. My Mama and Daddy divorced when I was one year old. I don’t have a single memory of living in the same house with my Mama and Daddy being together...not one memory of one day. That makes me sad…really sad. I am thankful that life brought me a Step Daddy and he was nothing but good to me…he really was a Daddy.
Tonight my mind keeps going to this. When I was just a little boy I would go spend two weeks in the Summer time with my Daddy in the hills of Tennessee, up around Cumberland Gap, where Tennessee and Virginia and Kentucky all come together…an absolutely beautiful place. After supper, my Daddy and my Uncle Tom would grab their instruments and walk out to the front porch. Depending on who was there, that determined which instruments would be there. Could be guitars. Might be a mandolin. Maybe a banjo. They would always turn to the left and sit on the left side of the porch. I never knew why and I still don’t know why they never once went to the right side of the porch. But as a little boy and even as I grew into a teenager I remember sitting on the porch with them and just listening.
They would sing and talk and laugh and smile and I could tell by the looks on their faces that this made them happy…that this was something special. So as they would sing and the sun would go down and the lightning bugs came alive and the crickets joined in…the music and the laughter would harmonize with those two creeks…the little one beside the house and the big one in front of the house as those sweet melodies bounced off of the hills surrounding that little farm house on Lonesome Valley Road. I LOVED THOSE NIGHTS. No, they didn’t seem as special to me then as they do now, but somehow I knew, I just knew, I was convinced those times were not normal…and I felt a certain pride…just by being there… with my people. I felt special…I felt safe.
My Dad died 26 years ago. Kala was 6. Luke was a year and a half. Isac was not even born. They never got to know their PaPaw. That has always made me sad…really sad. How I wish they could have laughed with him. How I wish they could have listened to him sing. How I wish they could have listened to him tell his stories and seen that twinkle in his eyes. How I wish they could have known him and been loved by him. One day they will. I saw the Lord change my Daddy’s heart when I was in my thirties. I saw Him fall in love with Jesus. I will see him again. I look forward to introducing him to my kids. I look forward to them getting to know him.
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