Advent Violin

I thought the trees were trying to tell me something, their creaky bows breaking with the weight of snow and the ache of wind.

“No son, the trees aren’t talking to you,” my father said. “Listen, Shhhh, listen close. That’s a violin. That’s Ol’ Mr. McNair playing his violin.”

Dad whispered his words, but they were loud against the neighborhood hushed by the day’s big snow. Hushed the way a bird stops singing when you toss a cover on its cage.

It was quiet, but for two tranquil sounds: the soft, rhythmic scratch of my father’s brushing the snowy blanket off the firewood pile and Mr. McNair playing what was the truest version of Grandma Just Got Over By a Reindeer ever heard.

I stood still, transfixed, my heart flooding with a warmth that nowadays I struggle to regain.

The moon was full. And dad’s face glowed blue from the light mirrored off the snow. I watched him pause and listen to the music before he dusted off an icy log. He smiled down to me and asked, “So, what’s Santa going to bring you this year?”

“A violin,” I said.

That night was the beginning of a small blessing that forever kept me anchored to that moment in the snow. For years, starting December 1st, Mr. McNair counted off the days to Christmas by playing a different carol each night.

Decembers were extraordinary. There was no music like it. I lived to hear the soaring sound of those unadorned songs.

Mr. McNair lived alone in a room above the neighbor’s garage. Dad told me his heart was broken to pieces as a young man—something I did not understand until I got older.

He didn’t like people bothering him and he talked to himself. Some thought he was mean.

I met Mr. McNair once on Christmas Eve just before he passed away. Dad asked me to carry a load of firewood up for his stove. I entered the dark room and set the wood on the floor. I caught sight of that violin by the stove right next to where would have been his last log. I asked right out if his heart was broken. I was curious. He stared at the wood and told me that indeed it was.

I turned to go but he invited me to stay a minute. He told me that a broken heart still is full of precious gifts. That’s how love sometimes finds its way into music.

“Like a violin carries love into song,” he said, “memory guides love to your soul. Thank you for the firewood.”

“Merry Christmas,” was all I could say.

It still amazes me how a man stung by life still could summon such divine music from his heart.

I never did get a violin that Christmas, but every December I still stop and listen to the trees. I listen to try, to recall that original warmth I felt in my heart.

The music is gone. The sound is forever a part of my soul. The bow is not broken.

pk - '93