Isabella's Torch
by Kristine Lowder
Reading with my uncle was like snagging a front row seat at a command performance. Norman Naas didn't just like books. He devoured them. Ate them up with a spoon. If it came to a choice between dinner and another chapter, you may not see Norm until after dessert. Or the next morning.
I took full advantage of my Uncle Norm's love of literature whenever the Naas clan came to visit. Norm believed in reading aloud before reading aloud was cool. He put heart and soul into every page, bringing characters to life with different vocalizations, gestures and facial features. Realizing this, I'd climb into his lap, laded to the chin with books. Bass voice booming, Norman and I bounded into Treasure Island and Camelot, explored Neverland with the Lost Boys, roared with Aslan, and jumped into chalk pavement paintings with Mary, Burt, and the Banks children. We shared many summer hours with Stuart Little, Black Beauty, a word-spinning spider, an Indian in a cupboard, an old yeller dog, the March and Ingalls families. So many others.
. It was 1960-something. I was in the second grade. One November my mom bought me a book that I couldn't figure out. "It's a Christmas book," she explained. "The holidays will be here soon." Lavishly illustrated with beautiful graphics, I could read the words just fine. There was only one problem: they were song lyrics, and I couldn't read music.
Figuring that Uncle Norm was omniscient in all other matters bookish, I pulled on his sleeve one November morning when the troops were visiting for Thanksgiving and thrust the dark blue book into his hands. "Can you read this to me, please?" "It's a signing book. I don't know how it goes."
We retreated into the living room, plopped onto the sofa and Norm opened Bring a Torch, Jeanette Isabella. He paged through, "ooing and ahhing" at scenes depicting a young girl with a torch, the Holy family, a village stable and lots of stars.
"Oh, this is a good one!" Uncle Norm said. He always said that. To a world-class bibliophile like Norman Naas, every book I offered was "a good one."
"Let's give it a try, shall we?" he said, perching his black-rimmed glasses atop his nose. Norm started at the beginning and began to sing:
Bring a torch, Jeanette, Isabella!
Bring a torch, to the stable run
Christ is born. Tell the folk of the village
Jesus is born and Mary's calling.
Ah! Ah! beautiful is the Mother!
Ah! Ah! beautiful is her child.
A French Christmas carol that originated in the Provence region in the 16th century, Bring a Torch urges visitors to the stable to keep their voices down so the newborn Babe can enjoy his dreams. There's a brief pause after each "Ah!"
I'm told that children in the Provence region still dress up as shepherds and milkmaids, carrying torches and candles to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve while singing the carol. The doleful tune has also been recorded by Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians, Joan Baez, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and Mannheim Steamroller, among others.
Uncle Norm and I never recorded Bring a Torch, but it seems we sang it over and over each holiday season for years. The literary lights he lit still blaze beacon-bright.
I don't know what happened to that book, but Uncle Norm passed away several years ago. I think of him often, especially when prowling the stacks of the local library. And when winter prances onto the calendar and whispers into a new year, I sometimes catch myself humming. Isabella's torch lights the way home.
A multi-published author, Kristine Lowder enjoys reading, writing, hiking, camping (except for the tent part), fishing (except for the fish part), swimming (except for the water part) and exploring the Cascades with the fam. She loves Puccini arias, raspberry white chocolate cheesecake, and doing almost anything other than scrubbing the kitchen sink. Contact Kristine.
