“Mommy, why do the Johnsons only have a candle in one window?”
I looked down at the bundled up marshmallow hanging onto my hand as we crunched through the snow in front of the Johnson’s hulking colonial house. Over the course of this short winter stroll around the block, Noelle had seen several houses whose every window glowed with a candle. That was how the colonial tradition had evolved, and I guess the uniqueness of the single candle had caught her attention.
“Do you know where the candle tradition comes from?”
She shook her head and plopped herself down on the frosted curb for story time. I laughed, picked her up and transferred her to my hip, and kept walking. By the time we reached our front door, I had taken Noelle back to the early days of our country, when colonists would light their windows with candles to signify that their family, for one reason or another, was missing a cherished member. The candle symbolized to that family member that they were missed and welcome to come home when it was time to return.
But we had not made it past the history lesson before Noelle saw her dad’s car in the driveway.
“Daddy’s home!” She screeched as she pushed off my hip and ran through the front door.
I stopped for a peaceful moment to examine the outside of our house–dressed in so many lights it must have been a fire hazard–without a single candle in any of the windows.
Inside, my husband was already in the kitchen following orders from our very demanding, virtually challenged chef.
“We need sugar, flour, butter, chocolate chips…”
“Chocolate chips?” Brent asked. “Sugar cookies don’t have chocolate chips.”
Noelle squished his cheeks between her hands. “Everything good has chocolate chips.”
Brent chuckled as he searched the baking cabinet for chocolate chips.
Here I was, thinking I had avoided having to explain the Johnson’s candle to Noelle. But the thing about kids is that, despite their distractible nature, they usually come back to the important things.
“Dad, who is missing from the Johnson family?”
Brent looked up at me, and I felt obligated to bring him up to speed.
“We went by their house on our walk,” I said. “She saw the candle.”
“Ah,” Brent said. “That’s a very special story. You are too young to remember, but the Johnsons used to have a little boy named Emmett.”
“Where did Emmett go?”
I could think of countless people who could answer that question. My mind turned first to Sister Watson, an elderly woman who attended our church.
“Sister Watson.” Three-year old Emmett had rushed up to her one day after the service. “Why do you always sit all the way back here?”
“I feel I’m out of the way in the back.”
“Sister Watson,” Emmett repeated. “My mom and dad won’t let me run back here to play on your wheelchair in the middle of the meeting. I need you to sit up front with us next Sunday for the Christmas service, okay?”
Without invitation, Emmett climbed up on Sister Watson’s knee, threw his arms around her neck, jumped off, and started to run away. He stopped in the doorway, turned around, and without noticing the tears the rest of us saw on Sister Watson’s face, pointed at her and said, “Next Sunday. Don’t forget.”
She did not forget. Sister Watson still sits with the Johnsons every Sunday, even though Emmett no longer climbs up on her wheelchair.
Thomas Merrill lives next door to the Johnsons, although no one knew it until Emmett threw a way-too-curve ball over the fence. Five was plenty old enough to go get the ball on his own, so without telling his parents, he ran next door and knocked.
Emmett thought it had surely been years since this guy had shaved. He stood mute in the doorway, holding a can of Spaghetti-Os and a spoon.
“Hello, Sir,” Emmett said, standing as tall as he could. “My ball is in your backyard. Can I go get it?”
Thomas stepped aside and Emmett ran past him. Returning victorious, ball in hand, he thanked the man and ran back home. Thomas shut the door and went back to his lonely day. The way he tells the story, he figures he would have gone on living virtually neighborless were it not for what showed up on his doorstep Christmas morning.
In response to the doorbell, he shuffled to the door and opened it to find a tray of steaming food fogging up the frozen air. It was the best Christmas breakfast he had eaten since he left home. But no cinnamon roll or omelette could compare to the crudely wrapped present and note scribbled in young handwriting.
The wrapping came off easily to reveal an open package of razors with only one left. The card read: “I brot you brekfest becuz mom says Basceti-Os are gros. And one of dad’s razers, becuz I thot you mite need one.”
Another card, written by Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, kindly invited Thomas to spend Christmas night with them. After that invitation, Thomas became known at community events all throughout the years to come.
Emmett was sixteen when he was admitted to the hospital, and seventeen when they finally gave up trying to understand what was happening to him. Angelica, the leukemia patient next door, was fifteen.
“She’s too young, Mom,” Emmett said when he heard that the cancer was going to take Angelica before Christmas.
Mrs. Johnson fought back the tears. Christmas was only a month away, but she knew it was not likely that she would spend it with her son.
“Mom, I need you to do something for me. It’s really important, okay?” Mrs. Johnson waited as Emmett scrawled out a list on the back of a hospital menu and handed it to her.
“Take Dad with you. Get all of these things and bring it back here to my room. Sneak it past the nurses if you have to.”
Emmett turned to one of his ever-present nurse best friends and winked. She smiled.
Mrs. Johnson did as she was told, and returned a few hours later with Mr. Johnson and several family friends, including Brent and me. We all carried bags of lights, garland, and even a few small Christmas trees into the room. The people and decorations could hardly fit, and we could not imagine what the place would look like when the bags exploded all over the room. But under Emmett’s direction, we turned the spacious hospital room into a winter wonderland. We put tinsel on the trees, strung up the lights, lined the counters with a nativity scene, and even hung some mistletoe. At one point, I noticed Angelica’s parents peering in through the window.
“Now that’s the spirit of Christmas,” Emmett said when we finished. “We’re just missing one thing.” He nodded to the nurses, who smiled again and hurried next door. They returned minutes later, pushing Angelica into the room in her wheelchair, her parents in tow.
The nurses turned off the lights and let the electric candles, Christmas lights, and Angelica’s face light up the room. After Angelica had time to take it all in, she said, “Push me over by Emmett. I want to kiss him under that mistletoe.”
Everyone laughed, and she pecked him on the cheek. No one knows what she whispered in his ear, but it made them both smile, and laid a feeling of peace like a light blanket of snow over the room.
I will always be grateful for the candle the Johnsons light in Emmett’s window year after year. It reminds me of every story I will never forget about our neighborhood angel.
“That’s where Emmett went,” Brent finished. “Into all of our hearts.”
At the conclusion of the stories of Emmett’s Christmas cheer, Noelle pondered them in the reverence every Christmas Eve deserves. As if she thought his memory deserved a moment of silence, she stood up without a word and walked back to the laundry room. She emerged with a plain white pillar candle.
“Daddy, can you light this for me?”
“Of course, sweetheart,” Brent said, and as he lit it he asked, “Is it for Emmett?”
“No,” Noelle said, placing it on the windowsill by the front door. “The Johnsons have one for Emmett. But he reminds me of someone I want to always be welcome at our house.”
“Who?” I asked.
We all watched the candle flicker as Noelle came over and hugged my leg. She let the silence of the night wash over us before answering, “Jesus.”
No matter how many windows we fill with candles in the coming years, one window will always be lit for Christ, our Savior, as we remember Him and every way he and his followers save our lives each day.
