The Porch Light

This story was told as part of our "Longest Night" service of worship on December 21, 2008

Old man Pete Fracas was eighty five if he was a day,
and he lived up in Green County outside of Ruckersville.
A friend of mine, John, a pastor, was a neighbor of Pete’s
though he didn’t claim to know him well.
Pete wasn’t the kind of man anyone seemed to know really well.
He and his wife, Carol, kept pretty much to themselves
though they lived barely a football field’s length away from John.

John says Pete’s main passion – his only passion, it seemed,
was cultivating the perfect lawn.
Pete’ lawn indeed was a thing to behold;
a two-acre carpet of green that was smooth as a pool table top.
On that lawn not a blade was bent.
No leaf ever spent more than five minutes on Pete’s lawn
unless it was at night when he sometimes slept.
Even at night though, John said he’d seen Pete out with a flashlight
getting up leaves.

But you know how it is living in the country.
Things happen you just don’t have much control over.
Dandelion seeds blow in from fields all around.
Voles are bad to invade when you’re not looking.
And John said it wasn’t unusual for nearby cows to break a fence
and find their way to old man Fracas’ beautiful green lawn -
Either the cows or the another neighbor's horse.
Pete didn’t seem able to work up any appreciation for the free fertilizer they left behind.
He’d just call up the animals’ owners and inform them in angry but efficient bursts that they needed to come retrieve their “ever-lovin’ poop factories.”
As meticulous as Pete Fracas was in trying to create a two acre patch of absolute order chaos had a way of bullying it’s way in.

There was one other absolutely consistent thing about Pete Fracas.
Every night after the sun went down he would turn on the front porch light.
John says he noticed the consistency and he wondered if it might have a light sensor
or be on a timer.
But he realized that though Pete was consistent in turning on the light every night
there was enough variation for John to know that he did it manually – every night.
John could see the porch light from his front window – a tiny point of light
shining in the darkness.

The one night when the porch light didn’t come on,
John realized there must be something seriously wrong with his neighbor.
He called the house but there was no answer.
He then called UVA hospital and sure enough, Pete was there. Carol was with him.
He’d had a massive stroke.
There was nothing to be done.
He died the next day.

Though the neighbors didn’t really know Carol, it was the country
and people take care of their neighbors in the country.
John remembers that each evening for a week he would stand at his front window
and look for the porch light that no longer came on.
It wasn’t much of a light, but it had made a remarkable difference for a weak bulb. Without it, the darkness seemed to swallow up everything.

A week after Pete’s funeral, John and his wife Elizabeth went to see Carol.
She was friendly, but a little formal, and, as you might expect, a bit distracted.
To make conversation John said, “I miss seeing your porch light.”
Carol looked at him as thought she didn’t understand,
but then in a far off voice she said, “You do?”
“Yes,” he said, in what he hoped was a cheerful voice,
“I got real used to it. It cut the gloom somehow.”

Carol looked at him, focused now, and said, “I’m surprised to hear that.
I thought people around here hated lights. Light pollution and all that.
I tried to get him not to turn it on.”
John said, “So, was it a security light? Something like that?”
Carol gave a little chuckle, “Oh no, nothing like that.”
Again, the faraway look returned.
She said, “When Pete was a young man his older brother went off to World War II.
His mother promised that she would turn on the front porch light
every night he was away.
But it was only six months before they got word back that his brother had been killed.
The night they learned of his death Pete’s mother didn’t turn on the porch light.
So Pete did.
And when we’ve been home, which is most every night the past 62 years,
He’s turned on that light.
It wasn’t a denial of his brother’s death – nothing like that.
It was just Pete’s way of remembering.”

John says he didn’t know what to say other than to nod his head
and hope he looked appropriately sympathetic.
He and Elizabeth said their goodbyes and that evening he stood by the front window.
He thought of Pete, fighting his never ending battle
for his little patch of order in the world.
He thought of Carol, not knowing what to do with herself now that she was alone
for the first time in forever.
He remembered how just a weak little bulb, the tiniest little light,
can go a long way in pushing back the darkness.
He stepped over to the switch by the front door, flipped it up,
and turned his front porch light on.