I was born on November 2, 1977 in Gastonia, North Carolina. An old textile city a short drive south from Charlotte down Highway 85. I was born there but didn’t grow up there. However it is where my Grandparents mostly made their home since the 1940s when they met at the Firestone Mill. Summer vacations and Christmas breaks were, most times, partly spent in Gastonia at my Grandparents brick ranch at the end of a small shady street, behind a once bustling mill. Every Christmas Eve my family would gather for dinner and presents. After dinner we would make our way into the den; a small room with a small Christmas tree but a lot of us crowded together on two couches and two chairs. My grandfather pulling envelopes out of his front shirt pocket containing a $50 or $100 bill for each of us was always a high point of the evening. My Grandfather passed away in 2003 and my Grandmother in 2012 and the tradition stopped. Those days have been downgraded to memories.
I stopped by my Grandparents house the other day. I haven’t been there since the day we buried my Grandmother almost three years ago. I pulled my car into their driveway, up the steep hill to the carport and parked. As I exited the car I was consumed by emotions. For a split second I had the feeling that I should be inside. Everyone is sitting together enjoying Christmas dinner, waiting on me to come in. But they weren’t. I walked the yard and cried. Hard tears. Tears of longing to be inside just once more. Tears that linked me to a past that no longer exists. I walked the yard and the now grassy area where my Paw Paw had a garden every year. Always. I noticed the street lamp at the end of the street. It has a peculiar hazy glow. I slept on the pullout in the den and the room never completely darkened because of that street lamp. Seemed like countless nights that peculiar hazy glow kept me awake.
I grabbed the hamburger I had bought for dinner from a local joint and sat on the brick steps to the front porch to eat. The front porch is covered and has a broken tile floor. It overlooks the fenced in back yard where my Uncle Wendell kept his dog, Sarge. As a kid I played endlessly, it seemed, on that front porch. Tempting fate by swinging my leg over the side of the porch into the back yard as Sarge barked and jumped at me. I don’t think he ever really liked me. I don’t think Sarge liked anybody but Uncle Wendell. But he always was a part of the experience of going to my Grandparents house, so I enjoyed it. But as I sat there on those brick steps I couldn’t help but think of how much Gastonia was a part of my life. How much my Grandparents’ home was a part of me. I thought about how I sat on those front steps and enjoyed ice cream with my family. I thought about how lucky I was to have had the time with my Grandparents. I was honored to be at their house because it had shaped me so much. I thought about their influence on me and how they encouraged me to have faith. They encouraged me to be a Christian and talked with me about their love for Christ and their love of their church. But they not only talked about it, they lived it. They lived it in that house at the end of a shady street behind the old bustling mill. I found out, that day, just how much this house was a part of me. It’s one small remnant. continued