Daily Scripture Reading: Luke 1:46b-55; 2 Samuel 7:18, 23-29; Galatians 3:6-14

A Childhood Memory

I was raised in a trailer park in a little town in lower Alabama. Most of my memories from childhood are in this place, and among this community of people who were kind to me and whose children were my friends. Our neighborhood was shaped like a lowercase “h”. If you were to draw it on kindergarten paper, the line the “h” was standing on would be the highway, with our house on the long side of the “h” near where the dotted line crossed. Inside the legs of the “h” was a large grassy field we kids called “the middle”. The middle was where we played, where we fought, and where we climbed the world’s largest mimosa tree.

There was one lot up by the highway that was usually vacant. Except I remember one time it was occupied for a while by a man living in a camper trailer. He was a construction worker, working on a pipeline I think. We would see him in the morning while waiting on the bus. He would wave. I cut his grass. He paid well. I can see his face, but his name is lost to me. I asked my Mama, but she couldn’t recall his name. I even used this as an excuse to call my Dad, since it usually takes a reason for us to talk much, but he could not remember his name either.

I think the reason this kindly neighbor sticks in my mind is because of the time our family shared the light with him. After a thunderstorm the power went out. Mama lit candles. I do not remember how we knew it, but our neighbor’s little trailer was dark. So Mama melted a candle onto a jar lid. I carried that little flame through the dark, across the middle, and shared it with our neighbor. He was surprised and grateful. And so was I.

—Lee Harrell