I'm standing in the middle of the floor, surrounded by Christmas decorations. Now I know why I don't want to decorate. I pull out a funny singing Abominable and smile...Aarons. Next I find a cardstock Santa held together by strings...Ryans. I spot an ornament thats a snowman in a military uniform, BDU's they call them....Matts, the top of a star box set looms up at me, a gift from Kaylee. I am alone in the room. Suddenly I feel intensely sad. No little ones yelling for me to hand them an ornament, no excited voices calling out, "where do I put THIS mommy?" no voices at all.
How do you do this Lord? How do you get into the spirit of it without some of the ones you love so much? I just heard from Lindsay who is already mourning the holidays away from her family next year, I feel her pain, I remember that feeling of being disconnected from all that is familiar, until we began to build our own traditions it was pretty hard. I remember that first year without Matt home for Christmas, in fact he's only been home twice in 6 years for the holiday. That first year, we had drawn names with the Holt family. I knew whose name Matt got cause I was with him when he bought the gift, he'd been home for Thanksgiving. It was one of those rare moments with Matt that year when he was really thinking about what he wanted to do for someone (he's like that all the time now!) and he spotted this ornament of a Golden Lab, Connie had just gotten Bisquit, their yellow lab and he knew how much she loves that dog so he got it. It was my job to deliver the gift. We were all assembled at Jim and Connies and opening our name gift/ornament. I handed Connie hers and began to sob. When she saw the name on it, she did too. That was a hard Christmas. The next one we had with Matt was when he was in England. We bought him gifts and had them shipped over to him and arranged to have a video chat on the big day. We all packed into our little computer area at midnight and turned on our webcam, there sat Matty, smiling as big as you please, a little bitty tree with lights in his dorm room (honestly, my heart still wrenches when I see it in my minds eye) and he opened his presents in front of all of us. It was a hard goodbye. Amazingly, I managed not to cry, it became a goal not to cry when I said goodbye or was hurting for him and most of the time I was successful...at least until about 5 minutes before he would board a plane! hahaha!
I am so grateful for these four people who have made my life so very very very rich and meaningful. I am sure they kept me sane so many times and so many times drove me nuts but at the end of each day, I would lay in bed and be so deeply touched that I had four children who loved me. I am at a new place in my life, John and I sort of stumble around figuring out what to do next and you know what? I love that we are TOGETHER, that we have each other and I am not alone. More than anything though, I am grateful to the Lord, for so many years of blessing, of love, laughter, joy, pain, lessons and the authoring of my very life! God is so good.
Okay, onward...I'm going to forge ahead and then, when Lu comes today for babysitting? I'm gonna show her all the pretty things and enjoy the little one in our lives and look to the future~
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