by Dawayne Spires

Created on: October 24, 2008   Last Updated: November 26, 2011

Friends and Memories

A lone man sits in a patchwork lawn chair in front of a meager campfire. He stands and tosses another stick or two on the fire. The flickering amber light casts his shadow upon a well-used but empty one room shack. The words, "Old Farm Hunting Club", are clumsily printed in white paint on a shingle that hangs over the doorway. Bailey Wilkes is alone in his thoughts this night as he turns and sits back down. It is a cool night, but not as cool as it could have been on a Macon County Christmas Eve. Bailey slowly looks around his surroundings. This land has been in his family for longer than he can remember. It was here that he had taken his first buck. It was here that he learned the ways of the outdoors from his father. It was here that he had enjoyed countless good times with friends that shared his love of the outdoors. It was here that more than forty years ago that he asked Emma to marry him and it is here tonight, his first Christmas without her, that he seeks to find sanctuary from his pain and loss.

Christmas was Emma's favorite holiday. She would dress the entire house in festive ribbon. Every window would have it's very own candle. The smell of freshly baked cookies and cakes wafted throughout the rooms mixed with the scents of recently cut boughs of cedar and pomanders made of oranges and clove. There were presents for everyone under the tree. Each gift would be wrapped in paper specially picked for that person. Emma was everything that the Yuletide had to offer and more. Every day married to Emma had been Christmas to Bailey, but with her gone he feels that there will never be another Noel for him. This night, their home is far too much for him to handle.

Bailey stands once again and looks into the clear Middle Georgia night. While gazing at the milky way, a meteorite streaks across the sky.

"A falling star," Emma would have said, thinks Bailey to himself. She would have also made a wish. Bailey closes his eyes for a moment, then walks toward the check-in board.

The names he reads are all close friends. Memories flood his mind with each name. Bill Jenkins is probably his oldest friend. Bailey remembers the morning that Bill's son, Ben, and Bailey's boy Josh took their first bucks. The joy that he and Bill felt as they watched two boys on the threshold of manhood arguing over whose deer was bigger was immense.

There is the accident that had taken Emmett McKellen's left leg. Everyone pitched together and built several elevated ground

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