It’s 4am 2025. I’ve been on writer’s holiday for about the last month. I have traveled more than I’ve been home. We have burned up the interstate highways across six states. And we have wandered aimlessly across the lush country roads of our rural southland.

Over that time, we have attended two weddings, one funeral, three Christmases, and one honeymoon. We stayed in two Airbnbs and in two different back spare bedrooms. I have been home long enough only to swap out my bag with clean undies before heading out again.

With few exceptions, my dietary schedule has been off. I’ve eaten wedding food, funeral food, food court food, and something that looked like an egg & cheese biscuit from a gas station.

And to boot, I got home Monday night, sick as a dog. I was worthless to Marion driving the interstate back from Mississippi. I mostly moaned and slept. I did manage to wake up long enough to make a doctor’s appointment for Tuesday. I saw the nurse practitioner, got some meds in me that afternoon, and slept away the better part of the last 48 hours.

Thus, I am awake at 4am.

My head swimming with stories I did not write over the holidays.

We were at my daughter’s home opening presents, the Friday after Christmas, when we got the news that one of Marion’s best friends lost her Mama about 11:30pm Christmas Eve. The funeral service was supposed to be on Sunday. Although there was never any doubt that we’d be in attendance, Purvis, Mississippi ain’t exactly right around the corner from the house.

Marion was a nervous wreck most of the evening. She was texting with Dale, checking on her. She was watching the weather on her phone. Saturday night was looking like a squall line of tornados would be coming through Mississippi right about the time we’d get to Purvis.

When we left on Saturday morning, we went straight from my daughter’s house in Holly Springs to Marion’s house in Newnan. And even though she was anxious to get on the road, she took time to throw a crock pot together for a different funeral dinner going on at her church.

“It’s no big deal,” Marion said. “It won’t take but a minute, and we can drop it off at the church when we head for the interstate.”

I took the wheel, and she set up the navigation. We listened to Dr. Don’s weather talk podcast as places like Montgomery, Greenville, and Evergreen, Alabama whizzed by us on the interstate speedway. He gave us reports on pressure gradients and temperature shifts. Long about Lucedale, Mississippi he reported a Tornado warning just SW of Hattiesburg, which is where we’re headed.

The remarkable thing is that we arrived in Purvis just after dark without ever needing our windshield wipers. The massive greens and reds were building all around us, but Somehow we dodged the worse of the weather. A few hours later, the wind howled, the rain fell in buckets and the power went out for several hours. But by that time, we were safe inside and slept to the hum of the all-house generator working outside our window to keep us comfy.

The sky was clear, and the air chilly the next morning. When we left for the funeral around noon on Sunday, we headed about 25 miles south to Dale’s homeplace near Wiggins. I think it’s fair to say that we traveled a remote country road or two to get there.

“You see that mailbox?” I’m pointing this out to Marion.

“Yup. Looks like a mailbox to me.”

“That’s the first mailbox we’ve seen in the last five miles.”

We’re also following Kent, Dale’s husband, who’s leading the way. He happens to be traveling near the speed of light down these winding county roads. He’s retired law enforcement which evidently gives him immunities I don’t have.

At some point we crossed over I-59 that heads down to New Orleans. No exit ramps. No filling stations. No grab-n-go stores. Just a bridge over the modern highway. Pine forest standing tall on all four corners, almost like they’ve been left there to hide the scar across the land made by the federal highway department.

It’s like the road engineers said, “Who would ever want to get off the highway at Wiggins, Mississippi? Just bridge it so we can get on with it.”

And I suspect the fine folks of Wiggins were happy they came to that conclusion.

Dale was a Boone before she married Kent. Her brothers, Robert and Tommy stayed in the family timber business with their dad until he passed over twenty years ago. They still run their own farms right here near their mama’s place where they grew up.

Miss Julie, their mama, moved here when she married Tom Boone at 21 years of age. She was 91 when she passed late on Christmas Eve.

We broke out of the tall pines into open pastureland. The white farmhouse, which had been Miss Julie’s home for over 70 years, stood way back off the road. The long gravel drive across the pasture was lined with pecan trees, large arched limbs covered in resurrection fern.

You know you’re at a working farm when the barns are four times bigger than the house. One for livestock and hay. One for equipment, with a shop to try and keep things running.

I never knew Miss Julie, but I can tell I would have liked her. She was a gardener. I visited with folks around the house for a bit, but there was still 2 hours before the service. I had time to walk around the yard and appreciate her love of plants. Camellia’s of so many different varieties. Japanese Magnolia. Burford Holly. A small fruit orchard. An open spot out toward the hay barn for a vegetable garden.

Slowly, the cars arrived. The yard filled first with vehicles and then the driveway, like a long train of cars single file all the way out to the road.

The graveside service is going to be right here at the family farm because the cemetery is here. Robert and Tommy are out of their elements dressed in gray suits. I am in jeans because there was no time to go by my house to get proper funeral clothes. But my attire is gaining in popularity as more people arrive.

“The clothes don’t matter,” one man said to me. “What matters is being here.”

I’m glad he said that because I also have on a pair of muck boots. It rained to beat the band most of the night before. The ground is saturated. The cow patties are moist. And it’s a fair walk to the cemetery on the other side of the lake.

There’s a fair mix of heels and boots, suits and camo, farm caps and cowboy hats in this crowd. I’d say nearly a 150 of us gathered around the family who sat beneath that tent. The storm had passed. The sun was brilliant. The winter wheat on the other side of the fence behind me was six inches tall and so green it hurt to look at it.

The hearse squished its way out across the pasture. It parked near the gate in the chain link fence. The grandsons, all strong and young, took the casket by the handrails, gently walked it over, and set it softly above its final resting place.

The old, retired preacher did Miss Julie proud. He spoke of a woman of great faith, kindness, and strength. He closed by inviting others to share their stories.

One lady spoke up, “If it weren’t for Aunt Julie, I never would have learned to sew.”

Another one said, “She taught me how to can my vegetables out of the garden.”

Finally. “It was Miss Julie who led me to the Lord.”

I’ve known Kent and Dale for almost a year now. I’m glad I had a chance to meet the rest of the Boone family. To visit this place. To feel the impact of generations born and raised in a place that will always be home.

Near the end, Dale made a special request of the preacher. “When we got married,” she said, “Mama wanted to have us all sing ‘There’s a Sweet, Sweet Spirit in this Place.’ I’d like to honor her with all of us singing it again here.”

A voice lifted. I couldn’t help but look around the crowd. Faces similar to so many I’ve known in other places and at other times in my life. Marion saw a man that could have been a twin to her husband’s dad.

As the words of that song drifted out across the pasture, “stay right here with us, filling us with your love. . .”, I couldn’t help but think about the life we all share. Georgia. Mississippi. Wherever. It doesn’t matter.

Loved ones die at Christmas. Long memories come to an end. Faith in the Eternal is the common thread. Family and friends gather to hold us up. The world moves on.

And just like that, you’re home.

It’s the first day of a brand-new year.