The carols are beginning to resonate in the air. I hear them everywhere, but there is only one that inflicts uncontrolled emotion when I hear it.
“I’ll be home for Christmas,” are the words sung by various artists that invariably give me pause.
“Home was not just one,” I realize, “but two” as my emotions begin to percolate, and I listen to the familiar words of the song,
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My first home was the “neighborhood,” before being dissipated by the birth of the renowned Lincoln Center. Before that, the world I knew in Hells Kitchen was dominated by the vast edifice, St, Paul the Apostle Church. The clergy of the Church were surrogate parents to most of the youngsters in the Parish. The priests knew us by name and visited our parents. They challenged us intellectually with provocative weekly sermons but also, taught us morals and social graces while we danced, dated and fell in love at the church sponsored Hecker Club. Until I left the neighborhood the year I was 19, I attended Mass daily at St. Paul’s, and yes, I remember it as my first home
Decades later shortly before abandoning my second beloved home in Farmingdale, a young friend offered to gift me a goodbye trip to the Church, and the neighborhood I had never forgotten, To Jackie’s surprise, I refused saying:
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“Everyone is gone, all those I knew and loved. I believe it would be too painful to return now to the empty streets.”
Instead I chose to keep those I cherished in memory and visit them often with my printed words.
However, now, December of 2023, a year of both blessings and crises, another Jackie has offered me a similar gift. This one, I cannot refuse.
My cousin, Lou Hall’s daughter, and I will attend (via Internet magic) Christmas Time in the City - A NYC Holiday Concert performed at St. Paul the Apostle Church. As we listen together to the familiar sounds of carols that evoke yesterday, I believe our pew will be shared with the others we both loved and who, too, once listened to Christmas music in St Paul’s..
And while memories of love, kindness and wisdom wrap me in their comfort, I will go home for Christmas this year.
