As many of you know, I grew up on our family farm in northeastern Ohio. The land traces back seven generations, purchased after my grandfather returned from the Revolutionary War. He sent two of his sons west to homestead what was then raw frontier, thick woods, low fertile ground, and real uncertainty. They built a simple but sturdy two-room house with a loft, thick plank walls pegged together by hand, and heavy beams resting over a crude cellar. That house was added onto in 1840 and still stood as the heart of the farm. The land passed from Wilson to Wilson from around 1818 to today, when my son will take over what remains. It was never just property. It was home, memory, and responsibility wrapped together.
After my father went home to be with the Lord in 1989, my mother stayed on the farm until age and health made that impossible. Before that, we packed up our own family and “went home” every Christmas. December was complicated for her. My dad’s birthday fell then, as did the anniversary of his passing, just days after her own birthday in early December. My brother’s untimely death preceded that after Thanksgiving in 1965. Grief sometimes has a way of disguising itself as stubborn resolve, and my mother was never one to admit she might not be on the top of her decision-making game, especially at Christmas. She liked order, cleanliness, and tradition, sometimes in that order, sometimes not. But always with conviction.
That Christmas morning, after the presents were opened, the floor was buried in wrapping paper. There was no garbage pickup on the farm, so trash went into an old, rusted, sawed-off 50-gallon drum about thirty feet from the milk house and horse barn. The drum was half its original height and thin as a pie tin in spots. The wind was up, sharp and steady, and there wasn’t a hint of snow on the ground. I protested. It didn’t feel right. Mom insisted. She didn’t want that mess in her house another minute. So out I went, lighter in hand, obedience winning over wisdom. The paper lit fast and lifted faster. Flaming scraps danced across the pasture, landing like sparks from a Roman candle.
Small fires became larger ones, and soon nearly half an acre was burning, the wind pushing the flames toward the barns. I fought it alone with a shovel and an old gunny sack while everyone else enjoyed Christmas morning inside, blissfully unaware. Eventually the fire gave up. I didn’t. I came back in smelling like smoke, face blackened, eyebrows singed. My mother looked across the kitchen table and said, calmly and without irony, “You shouldn’t have burned that trash with the wind blowing like that.” Scripture says, “Honor thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth” (Ephesians 6:2–3). You can honor them, learn from them, and still survive the fire. Sometimes that’s the promise.
