My story is a simple one.

I was born in a small town in Mississippi. My name doesn't matter. I'm just everyman, I guess. The first time I felt Christmas was about 1959. I was twelve. It was a long winter that year.

About two days before Christmas my Mama came to find me. I was working on shoes in a little shop on 9th in Jackson. I didn't make much money, but it was an inside job. Jackson don't get so cold, but working inside still beats being outside picking up stuff or other work.

Anyway, Mama came to find me to tell me that Daddy had come home the night before. We hadn't seen Daddy since I was three. I sorta remember him. He was tall and strong and had a crooked smile. But I couldn't quite bring up a straight picture of his face, you know what I mean?

I put the high top boot down and shut off my machine. "Whadaya mean, Daddy come home, Mama?" was all I could say. In the next five minutes Mama said that a neighbor came over and said there was a man asking about her and her kids and did she want to come and talk to him.

Mama had been waiting for Daddy since 1950. For nine straight years he never came home one night. Never.

I could smell the boot I was just working on. The boot grease was warm. A wash came over me as I struggled to grasp what Mama had just said.

In two more minutes I was making an excuse to the boss, who glared and said it might cost me the job if I left. Then it was out the door and walking quickly following Mama back to the small frame house I grew up in.

Fifteen minutes was all it took to walk the short mile. There was Daddy, leaning up against the door frame, hands on his hips, shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, hat cocked on his head. Just like I remembered.

It was funny. I wanted to run up to him and then just stand wordless in front of him and just look. Memorize his face. Burn 9 years of memories into those few moments.

I walked up slowly, thrust out my hand slowly and shook his like a man. He shook mine back.

We went inside. My two sisters and older brother were already standing in the kitchen, like they got bored and needed to look like they were doing something.

My voice squeaked out of my mouth, "Daddy?"

Then louder, "Daddy?"

He turned and I finally realized he wasn't very tall. With his hat he maybe stood my height. And he didn't look very strong, neither. I figured I could take him in a fight - you know how you kinda size someone up, sometimes?

"What?" was all he said. No, "son" or even my name.

"Why didn't you never come home?"

At that, he began to cry, slow and quiet. Then he began to speak. And I heard his story. There were no good excuses, just a life of bad choices. He had wandered off following friends and life. A family was just baggage at that point in his life. He got in trouble. It was something minor, a brush with the law. But he made friends with a guy in jail and when they both got out, Daddy took up holdups as a profession. Keep movin' on. Do a few jobs in various parts of town, then light out. It wasn't a good living. He couldn't even say it was a living. It was more like dying in degrees. The good light in his eyes kept getting dimmer and dimmer, he said, and soon it would go out, except something happened.

Daddy was stopped by something that changed his life. It was an encounter. On a cold December night the year before.

There was snow falling in Knoxville and hardly no wind. The front street of downtown was quiet and dark except for the neon signs in the bar on the corner that blinked a welcome, answered only by the occasional patrons through the front door. The store that Daddy was casing was closing. The owner turned out the front light as he walked into his office to count the day's receipts. The alley was no more than twenty steps away and then maybe fifteen more to the back door of the store.

Daddy's greeting at the alley door was all business. "Just hand me the bag and there'll be no trouble."

The storekeeper looked anxious. "What do you want?"

"Nothing but that bag and then you can go home to your family."

"Here. Take it. Please take it to your family."

"Whataya mean by that."

"Your family must really need this for you to have to resort to this kind of work."

"It's not work, you gotta be crazy. Just shut up and give me the bag."

"No, I mean you don't look like the kind of guy to do this. Is your family hungry?"

"I'm gonna hurt you in a minute."

"You got any kids?"

"Yeah, what's it to you?"

"I got a kid, myself. He's home with his Ma. Where's yours?"

With a grab, Daddy hauled the small bag of money and receipts out of the shopkeeper's hands. He raised his hand to hit the man.

"Nah, you're not worth it. Besides, my kid wouldn't care where I was or if I came home."

"That's too bad."

"I don't guess so, Mister. I haven't seen him in eight years. He probably doesn't want to see me."

"Oh, I bet he does. If he's the kind of young man you were he probably wishes to heaven you'd come home."

"What do you know about that?"

Well, Daddy told me that that man spent the next thirty minutes just out of the light of the alley lamp, telling him about the Father that wished his son would come home. And about the Father that sent his son to help everyone else come home.

Daddy's voice grew gravelly. "When I was caught later and put in jail, that man came to the jail to visit me. He even brought his son and they talked to me. I saw in them something I never seen in no two people. They seemed to like to spend time together."

I squirmed inside when Daddy said that.

He continued on about how the storekeeper was a Christian and Christmas was coming up; the time when the son of God was born.

Jail wasn't too warm and it was a tough place to be if you wanted to be somewhere else. The store owner's name was Henry, and he shared the story with me describing the first Christmas. A young man and his wife traveling to a distant place, then the young woman giving birth to a baby in an uncomfortable space, open to the outdoors. How the baby was really the son of God, and he would grow up and change the world."

(I used to think that I would grow up and change the world. One day everyone would see that I had done something great. Then I'd realize that I didn't have a Daddy and so I wasn't worth much.)

Henry kept coming everyday for two weeks. Finally, Daddy got out on bail and Henry took him home. Daddy took on a job at Henry's small store, first sweeping and cleaning, later stocking shelves. Finally, Daddy was making deliveries and doing part time at the front counter. Daddy's court date came up and Henry refused to testify in court. Daddy was free to go. With Henry.

The first place Henry took Daddy was to church. It was full of people on a night leading up to Christmas. The whole big room was full, and the bare bulb lights were bright, almost like daytime. There was the smell of burning wood coming from the woodstove in the middle of the room. People were singing. It was warm. Someone put a cup of hot cocoa in Daddy's hands and he moved with Henry to the edge of the people standing next to chairs.

The songs were sort of familiar. Daddy was sure he had heard a few of them. "Hark The Herald Angels Sing" almost sounded like something else he knew. The people were singing about a baby being born.

Daddy said at that point he realized how stupid he was to leave us. And, as the man in front said, "If you feel like you've been missing out on life and you're ready to find it again, come on down," Daddy found himself walking to the front. It was like a dream. He wasn't even sure he was really walking.

At the front he heard the man talking about Jesus and the Christmas story. It was a beautiful story. On a night in a small town a young woman had given birth to the son of God. Daddy said that's when he started to cry. He had never thought much about the birth of his son, and now he was face to face with a story that he wished he could tell.

Daddy said he turned his life around that night before Christmas one year ago. Then he spent the next year preparing to come find us.

I never knew what Christmas was. When I was a little boy of four my life was all about staying warm in the winter. We couldn't afford coal. Mama worked out and then brought in sewing and ironing at night to put food on the table. It wasn't much. We kept alive. Christmas was like any other time, you know what I mean? It was cold some years and some years not so cold.

It was during the longest nights of the year, during the Christmas holidays from school, all us kids would have to take care of ourselves on the days when Mama worked. Then at night, we'd sit around and talk or sometimes play cards. Mama would read the Bible to us.

I couldn't understand what it was about. God was a father. I didn't want him. He was a nobody. God gave up his only son. Yeah, gave him up for good. He dumped him. He walked out of his life and left him to make it on his own. What a jerk.

Now, here I was with my Daddy, blowing back into my life like dust on the wind, and it was kinda all coming back to me. Pain, hurt, sorrow and joy all washed over me at once. I wanted to run into Daddy's arms and sob like a little boy. But too many years of hardness wouldn't let me do it.

Was this Christmas time?

I could never afford to get nothing for Mama because all the money I made at the shoe repair shop went to help pay the rent and buy food. We were barely scraping by. Only one of my sisters could get work, but my brother and other sister couldn't find any work so we all just contributed what we could.

I was planning this year to give Mama a new dress. It was the only thing I could think of that she always seemed to look at when we would go downtown. She'd look sideways into the store window thinking that I couldn't see how her eyes looked long at the dresses. I never had no money to speak of, but there was a dollar or two that I had kept back. Now I had ten dollars and tomorrow was the day I would pick out Mama's Christmas dress. I could feel the cloth in my hand already, just thinking about it every day.

In two days, I knew Christmas wasn't going to be the same ever again.