So this is Christmas, and our season is upon us. And just as the weather and the leaves herald a change in the other seasons, there’s change in the air here too. There’s a whisper on the wind of pining and pain, and it blows through our house like a tornado, hazing us with its weariness and malaise.
We’re ducking and weaving through the gauntlet of important days that stack up to maim and shame us with their pageantry of joy - diagnosis day a few days before Christmas, brain surgery a few days later on my birthday, entering end-of-life care a year later on Christmas Day, dying on New Year’s Eve, that pean to endless possibilities and new beginnings the world over, and a funeral in the middle of the summer holidays, that previously carefree patch of real estate owed us all.
As I like to say, there’s never a good time for your child to die, yet still we must navigate this most wonderful time of the year like aliens in a macabre advent calendar, with craters of disease and decay on the most fun days. There’s tinsel and twinkling lights and carols in every aisle we walk down, and he’s missing from them all. We march through this cacophony of celebrations like soldiers ready for battle, rattling and raging against this brutally uncomfortable skin we got five years ago when he went away.
This cover photo is the first Santa photo we’ve had since he died. It captures our family perfectly. Missing the part that made us whole - here, there, everywhere.