Celebrate Me Home

Joe and I bought tickets to the Kenny Loggins concert before we found out that Jens, because of his broken arm, wouldn't be playing in the state championship tournament. We bought them before we knew that our team would lose the game by 3 points in the last 2.5 seconds of the game. We bought them before we had any idea how worn we'd be from all the highs and lows of October and November. So when the concert finally rolled around, we left our home to drive the 3 hour round trip to see one of our favorite artists, and we wondered why we paid so much for tickets to a concert we weren't even sure we could stay awake for. That concert was SO MUCH FUN!!! Amazingly, my middle-aged feet were dancing and my arthritic husband rembered how to do "the bump". It seemed like all the cares of raising a family were off our shoulders for a while and we danced and sang along with everyone else in the crowd. (Although, just between you and me, I was suprised at how old all the other concert-goers looked!) I love Kenny Loggins' music, from House at Pooh corner to Footloose his songs are uplifting and have a great beat. One song in particular really touched me, I had forgotten how much I loved this song, it isn't one of his more popular ones either, but when the first measures of the music started, it was like seeing the face of an old friend again. Kenny Loggins introduced the song by saying that he had been on tour since May, and that this concert was his last stop before returning home. He said how excited he was to get back to his family and begin celebrating the holidays, and then he launched in to singing a very heart felt "Celebrate Me Home", with everyone joining in. Wow! Is it possible to feel the Spirit at a rock and roll concert? I find myself humming this song constantly now. I must say that at this season in my life that is filled with so many home-leavings, celebrating home comings is intriguing to me.

My adjustment to Rach living somewhere else has been a slow one. Her whole senior year I couldn't keep myself from thinking of all the lasts, like: "this is the last time I'll see her getting ready for a school dance"...."this is the last time she will yell at her brothers for being slobs" (which, uh, actually proved not to be true), anyway, you get the idea. I began missing her long before she was gone. Joe tells me I was a lot of laughs to be around. I haven't been doing much better now during Jens' senior year, either. And then, Rach came home from college this weekend to announce she is enrolled in the mission prep course. My brain did the math(actually, Joe's brain did the math, on account of my brain hasn't done math since the '90's) and I realized if she goes on a mission, she will be gone in less than a year, and Jens would leave 6 months after her! YIKES!!! I hate it when my kids leave home. It is on my list of top 3 hates in life. It falls closely after my #1 hate of getting on the scales at my doctor's office. So when I heard Kenny sing "Celebrate Me Home" it was like a little voice saying to me to stop the continuous recording that says my kids (the traitors!) are leaving, but instead look forward to the times we will come together again. The focus should be not on the goodbye, but on celebrating them home again.

This idea brings me back to memories of my own. Memories I wander to when I have a primal need to recall what peace and security feel like. Like in the song mentioned above, "Memories that I'll always remember and I can recall whenever I find myself too alone". And since it's almost Christmas, I want to share my favorite memory of being celebrated home, on Christmas Eve, by my Granny.

Christmas at Granny's house was every thing it should be for a child. There was the fake, flocked tree with presents spilling out from underneath. Cousins to play with, stories from Grandpa about how this year was going to be the year he was going to catch Santa. He would show us a big trap and Santa's very own boot and Rudolph's tail that he had caught in traps of years' past. At night, Grandma would tuck us in bed in the back bedroom with a hot water bottle wrapped in a warm towel at our feet to keep our toes warm. After the excitement of Christmas morning there would be sledding and sleigh rides. All of these wonderful things waited for me every Christmas at Granny's. But one image stands out in my mind as the most cherished of all. When I need to feel the Spirit of the season, or get thru a bad day, or year, this is the moment in my life I go back to for strength.

We lived two states away, so to get to where Granny lived was a long long long drive, multiplied by 6 kids (There are 8 kids in my parents family, but I don't remember Josh and Meg being born when we made the trips). How my parents got us all packed, with clothes, presents and snacks enough for the trip was a small miracle in itself. No matter what our estimated time of departure was, we inevitably left hours after we predicted. We always seemed to get to Granny's in the dead of night. And most often, on Christmas Eve. To this day, I can feel our car go over the railroad tracks just west of Granny's,I can hear the tires of our tired, old station wagon slow and begin to crunch on the snow-packed driveway. All of the houses in the neighborhood were dark, the residents long asleep, all but one. One little white house had all the lights on. Granny's house was always lit, with the glow from her windows reflecting onto the snow outside. No matter what time of night or morning we pulled in, Granny was always there, in the foggy kitchen window looking in to the darkness waiting for us. Not sitting on the couch watching TV, only to jump up when she heard our car round the driveway, but standing, waiting,who knows for how long, looking in to the night for our homecoming, too excited for that moment of arrival to do anything else but look out the window. I love that image. When our car pulled in, she would burst through her door for our first hugs in the cold, just outside of the car. When we walked thru the door, hugging and talking, a big kettle of homemade chicken noodle soup waited on the stove along with freshly made cinnamon twists. That moment, the images and the smells made the trip worth it, that moment of homecoming made the being seperated from Granny worthwhile. Being celebrated home is wonderful.

One year, we decided to play a trick on Granny. We were pulling in to Utah especially late and dad called Granny to tell her that the storm had been too severe and that we would have to stay at a hotel and arrive in the morning. We were actually only 30 minutes away, and the idea was to sneak in on Granny and suprise her. I remember giggling and thinking how fun this was going to be, Granny would be in bed and she would be so suprised. We didn't even dare pull into the drive way, but parked on the road. When we crept up the drive way and looked up there was Granny in the window, still watching for us. She was crying and laughing as she ran outside and said that after the call, she just couldn't go to sleep. So she watched. The image of my sweet Granny standing by the window looking for me in the darkness, even when she thought I wasn't coming, fills my heart with thanksgiving and the Christmas Spirit. It is a memory that has followed me and comforted me all my life. Being celebrated home feels like heaven.

So lately I've been thinking that when the time comes that my journey on this earth is done, I hope I am celebrated home to heaven. And if I am that lucky, I would'nt mind if my mansion looks a lot like the little white house that drew me near on Christmas eve. If it's not too much trouble, I would love it if it smells like chicken noodle soup and freshly made cinnamon twists. And please, let my Granny be in the window looking for me. Because then, I'll know I'm home...and it truly will be heaven.

May all your homecomings be ones to celebrate!

Merry Christmas