Going Home for Christmas
December 25, 2005 at 15:08 My brother Tom and his wife Darcy sent me a coffee table book for Christmas, a photographic journey through Rockbridge County, Virginia, produced by two photojournalists who built their careers in Washington, D.C., before moving to the mountains. Bruce Young and Jennifer Law Young managed to capture the subtle details that distinguish the County as well as the panoramic views it’s famous for.
Nestled in the Shenandoah Valley and guarded by the Blue Ridge Mountains, Rockbridge County is a fiercely beautiful place, rocky and pastoral, historic and rural, and Southern through and through. In Rockbridge County, time seems to stand still even as the clouds sweep over the mountains and the Maury River cuts through the rocks of Goshen Pass.
I wasn’t born in Rockbridge County, but I came of age there, living on a farm in the shadow of Jump Mountain, 17 miles from the nearest town, which had only 5,000 inhabitants. I went to school surrounded by people who had lived in the area for generations, and while my mother never really forgave my father for transplanting the family to the rural South, I related to the County on a visceral level, bound to its wild beauty and serene vistas, the spirit that flowed through its rivers and creeks.
I was rooted in the sense of the place, the permanence of its rocky landmarks, the moodiness of the sky, the lushness of the hills, and the way the roads never took a direct route anywhere. I loved the honeysuckle twisting through the pasture fences, the black angus dotting the hillsides, the satisfying crunch of its dirt roads, the canopy of hardwood trees, the stately presence of the old brick colonials and the Southern charm of the ubiquitous white farmhouses.
Like the narrow roads winding through the countryside, I was captive to Rockbridge County ’s geography. I was unable to casually pass through on my way to another life. Every bend in the road forced me to slow down, observe the world outside my window, and consider what might lie ahead.
When I left the County, I was only 18 and already engaged. My fiancé had been born half a world away to Belgians living in the Congo. Later he lived in Algeria, Turkey, and Greece before settling in the U.S. and attending college in the County. On our first date we went swimming in the Maury River, less than a year later he proposed at the same spot. I married him when I was barely 20, honeymooned in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and followed him to Oklahoma.
Eight years later, I dragged him back to Virginia because I simply couldn’t live anywhere else. For 15 years we made our home half-way between Richmond and Washington, visiting friends and family in the County when we could. Then last March with conviction we didn’t know we had, we returned to his roots, moving to Brussels, Belgium.
Last night during the Christmas Eve service at the Episcopal church we attend here, the Rev. Kempton Baldridge talked about his favorite Christmas song, “I’ll be Home for Christmas.” A Southerner and former military chaplain who has lived in Belgium for years, his voice choked with emotion as he quoted the lyrics: “I’ll be home for Christmas/ You can count on me/ I’ll be home for Christmas/ If only in my dreams.”
Kempton talked about Jesus, Mary, and Joseph as expatriates, people forced to leave all that was familiar behind, first to go to Bethlehem, then in their flight to Egypt. He spoke of the three kings who left their home countries to search for something bigger than the kingdoms they knew. He preached about our longing for “home” in both the physical and spiritual sense, how we’re driven by a desire for a place to call our own, a place where we’re loved and accepted just as we are, a place we can be our best and truest selves, a place we can be forgiven, a place that brings us peace.
In the glow of the church’s candlelight, surrounded by my husband and children, I knew I was right where I belonged and at home in my life, but this morning when I unwrapped Tom and Darcy’s gift, I was reminded of the place I’d left behind more than 20 years ago: Rockbridge County, forever home, no matter where I live.
© Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.
December 25, 2005
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