Christmas Eve Eve

December 23, 2011

Christmas Eve is tomorrow. 

I thought if I could keep myself busy, everything would be ok this year. 

There is no busy enough.

I miss you.

I miss you.

I miss you.

The presents are all wrapped, including the one I bought myself.  Getting ready to write cards to go with everything all those memories of holidays past have hit me. 

I am an undecorated snowwoman melting one tear at a time.

Here, alone in my house , Enya’s Christmas album in the back ground I am filled with thoughts of you.  How did this happen?

How did I get here to this eve of Christmas Eve with Sadie sleeping at my feet, Stella a live cat rug in front of the fireplace?  

Steve will be here soon.  I do not want him to see me crying.  But I am afraid I cannot stop.  My body quakes with sorrow. 

Breathe.  I can breathe. 

This will pass.

I know that now.

So the greatest gift I can give myself this year is time to let grief be.  To allow myself these memories of you.

Christmas Eve 1981.  I place the palm of my hand on my stomach, the place my womb used to be.  I remember my belly stretched round with you.   Your head cradled in my pelvis.  Knees, elbows rolling across my abdomen.  Feet poking me in the ribs. 

Silent night.

Mary was a mother just like me.  Whether you believe in Jesus Christ or God or not, she was a mother who cradled her baby boy in her arms, fed him at her breast.  She was a mother who  watched her newborn baby sleeping at night, checked to make sure he was breathing.  She was a mother who watched her son roll over, sit, say his first work, walk.  She fed him, bathed him, clothed him, worried over him.  She watched him grow into a man.

Holy night.

All is calm.

The calm before the storm. 

Did she know? 

The summer before you died I felt it in my bones.

I knew. 

I am trying to remember the rest of the song.  “Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright.”

Frustrating.  I cannot remember the rest of the words.

I close my eyes.  Keep singing.  It is hard to sing and cry.

“Silent night, holy night…”

A child is born that will die and leave his mother heartbroken.  This is all I can think of.

The rest of the words.  I remember them.  And then I get to the last sentences.

"Sleep in heavenly peace.

Sleep in heavenly peace."

Breathe.  Just breathe.

Merry Christmas Andrea.

Be in heavenly peace.


I love you.  That is my gift this Christmas.


Mom