The Long Road Home
© 2011 - William C. Highsmith

John Miller was an only child born to loving parents in the Low Country of South Carolina. Being an only child, he was also a lonely but very intelligent kid. At the tender age of eleven he made a vow to see the world. His parents worked hard to make sure he would be able to achieve his dream. They made sure he received the best education available in local schools and prepared to make a way for him to attend Clemson University where he majored in Environmental Engineering.

After college, he took a position with a firm in Columbia, South Carolina and began to travel. His job took him from the natural canyons of the Northwest to the concrete canyons of Manhatten in New York City and to the mountains of Puerto Rico. He traveled extensively. In so doing, he forgot where he came from. Calls and letters to his parents became less frequent until finally he simply neglected to contact them at all.

All the hard work made him a very wealthy man. He made friends wherever he went and was known as a hard hitting, hard drinking, man who took no prisoners. After about five years he started his own firm and moved to Denver Colorado where he became famous in his vocational sphere.

In the third year after he established his company, he was traveling to Germany to organize a study. One evening as he returned to his hotel room, he found a telegram from his mother informing him of the death of his father. However, by the time he was tracked down, it was two weeks after the funeral. Of course he called his mother and made all kinds of promises. Even so, he was engrossed in the task at hand and soon forgot about things back in the Low Country.

Projects came and were finished, and time was passing by. One day John was seriously hurt in an accident and, as he lay in his hospital bed, he began to reflect on his life. He was certainly not lonely anymore but, even with lots of friends, he felt he was missing something. Then he thought of his mother. A wave of nostalgia swept over him and he decided to go back to South Carolina for a visit.

One day his private secretary came to the hospital with another telegram. This one was from a second cousin. She informed him of the death of his mother. This telegram was three months after the fact, and it told about her demise and the fact that the county had buried her.

After leaving the hospital, John traveled to South Carolina. He rented a car at the Columbia airport and headed for Colleton county. Driving up the long lane that led to the old farmhouse, John remembered it had been fifteen years, since he had been home. He reached the porch and was flooded with emotion as he retrieved a key from a hiding place that only the family knew about.

Stepping inside, he came face to face with his past. The place was neat and orderly and had that certain smell that took him back to his childhood. In one corner was a stack of old magazines. To his surprise, every one of them were copies of 'Engineer Magazine'. As he thumbed through them, he noticed that each one had an article cut out. He soon found a scrapbook that held each one of the stories about him and his success.

He opened the top drawer of an old desk and discovered a journal. Day after day, his mother had written entries expressing hope she would soon hear from John. The last entry was four months ago.

His heart breaking, John stepped out the back door to get some air. Walking out to the shed, he stopped at the grave of his dog. He knew where it was because he had buried the animal when he was a lad of thirteen.

"It's been a long road home," he thought.

By William C. Highsmith - May 21, 2011