Category: Christmas

Christmas, Uncategorized

Holy Ground at Bedtime

Hannah

Last night my son and I laid near the soft glow of the Christmas tree, and talked as we have many nights at bedtime. We talked about all the typical things; what the bullies said to him at school today, why of all the people in the world did God allow me to be sick, and will the doctors tell us ahead of time when I am about to lose my voice, or will it just disappear without warning. I walked him through the emotions he feels about each of these things, and then we moved on through our bedtime routines.

It was after he was quiet for the night that it hit me how abnormal our normal is. I thought about my friends around town also tucking their littles in for the night, but their bedside conversations being about things like vacation plans, what they want in their lunch tomorrow, or what park or fun store they should visit after school the next day.

The unfairness rose quickly—that our conversations are rarely frivolous, that heaviness so often sits between our words. But as I lingered in the comparison, gratitude surprised me. I am not who I once was, and I’m thankful for that. This life has trained my eyes to notice what is delicate and fleeting, like the fine frost etched along the glass. The former version of me, busy and strong, would have overlooked it all.

I lingered by the lights that night before bed. Soaking in their soft, twinkly glow. Inhaling the last whiffs of an evergreen candle burned earlier in the evening. And in that quiet, I realized that this is how God has been teaching me to live now—slowly, attentively, reverently. My life has been narrowed in many ways, but it has also been clarified. When your world gets smaller, the meaningful things grow louder. The sacred becomes harder to ignore.

I don’t wish this road on anyone, least of all my child. I would give anything to lighten what he has to carry, to let him worry about ball court drama instead of disease progression. And yet, I can see how tender his heart has become. How perceptive. How brave. He asks questions some adults avoid for decades. He feels deeply, and he is learning that feelings— even the heavy ones— are survivable when they are shared.

Our conversations may not be light, but they are honest. They are full of connection. They are full of presence. There is a strange gift in knowing that tonight matters. That this voice, this body, this moment is not guaranteed tomorrow. It presses love into sharper focus.

As I finally turned off the tree and made my way to bed, I carried both grief and gratitude with me. Grief for the ease we’ve lost. Gratitude for the depth we’ve gained. I don’t think one cancels out the other. I think they coexist, braided together, teaching me how to hold joy without naivety and sorrow without despair.

This is not the life I would have chosen. But it is the life I’ve been given. And within it—between bedtime prayers and flickering lights, between hard questions and small mercies—there is still so much beauty to behold.

Christmas, Uncategorized

Enough

Hannah

I hardly have any photos from Christmas this year. Christmas Eve I missed our candlelight service at church because I was too weak to sit up or stay awake.

Our candlelit tradition of “shepherds’ meal” on the night of Christmas Eve only kinda-sorta happened, because I wasn’t well enough to remember, or to get up and make different choices of soup and bread like I usually do. The night was rescued by a frozen tub of tomato soup found in the bottom of the freezer, and the calming glow of our advent candles. I lay in my hospital bed in the next room listening to the chatter, and chiming in silly questions like “what ever happened to the sheep after the shepherds left to see baby Jesus?”

Late on Christmas Eve I still hadn’t managed to wrap more than 4 gifts to tuck under the tree. Anyone who knows my personality knows that is the polar opposite of my checklists and neat packages tied with string weeks before December 25th. My husband and daughter came through by busting out all the wrapping (with the help of a healthy stack of gift bags) in the late hours as Christmas Eve melted into Christmas morning.

Christmas morning… well, really most of the whole day is a blur with more chunks missing than I’d like to admit.

What I /do/ know is all four of my babes were under one roof again.

My silly dream of a Hannah tree finally happened, in all her pink glittery glory.

Even through sickness and pain, the cozy warmth of a crackling fire still brought with it the memories of Christmases past, and the anticipation of more to come.

Zero kinds of Christmas cookies or fudge happened, but “Kitchen Trash” sure as heck still did.

I did not capture my traditional “photo every hour” series of Christmas Day, but I did manage to grab the still-frames of the most important moments of joy and togetherness.

And as the day wound down and the doubts crept in with the quiet, my wise sweet little sister typed out the balm that my soul so badly needed; I need to adjust my definition of the word tradition from “every,” and “have to,” to “some years,” and “like to.”

When I sifted through my unmet expectations I found that though I didn’t get the Christmas pickle unpacked this year, there was just as much joy and gratitude and wonder in the exchanging of the packages. And even though we weren’t able to visit the lights at the bell tower or drive the neighborhoods looking for the best displays, the twinkling in our own window was enough to cast that magical glow that makes you feel warm with anticipation.

This Christmas started out feeling like I dropped more balls than I caught, but as the day unfolded and the story of the Light coming into this dark world permeated each of our moments and traditions, all of it was suddenly more than enough. I was enough. Because He is more than enough.

Christmas

There May Yet Be Hope

Hannah

After a week of navigating multiple infections, side effects from the antibiotics to treat them, layers upon layers of pain, my wheelchair ramp in the van breaking again, as well as the van being in an accident and needing repair, single parenting through the highs and lows of two young adults, a high schooler, and a middle schooler, all while trying to give our children the comforting normalcy of a home ready to welcome Christmas, it is tempting to despair, or to long for a storyline different than this one.

But at the crest of a new week with new challenges, I look back and can see so clearly where a mighty and tender King saw me sitting in the dark on the floor of my locked bathroom, reached out for me, held me close, and gently walked me through each step, whispering words of hope and assurance and goodness to me. He has been with me through it all, and the whole week He has sung compassion over me.

Saturday he sang Lamentations 3:29 over me, reminding me that even when facedown in the dust, there is hope. My peace grew as He shone a light through my despair. Even though this illness will most likely end my time in this world, He gives me hope and joy and life, and not just me, but many others as well.

As my wingman had to fly out of state again, leaving me to carry the weight of the household while pushing through crushing pain, I found truths in the book of James that promise that my suffering will mold endurance, leaving me perfect and complete. Digging into the Gospels for my church class, I read about crowds of people entrenched in suffering who travelled long and far to receive His healing. Like me, they were desperate for wholeness and relief, and in His compassion He gave them healing. I am left wondering, is this the same Jesus who might choose not to heal my body on earth? Will he let my little loves continue to watch me waste away to nothing and then have to grow up without their mom? Will he let my husband of 23 years become a widow and a single parent?

Then I find that He never promised a life of comfort. He promised great struggle and suffering. And hard as that is to comprehend, I hold to His promise that His Kingdom will come through the mending of all that is broken, and that His power is made great in my weakness. He came here to suffer an agonizing death so that I can learn to suffer well in His footsteps; that even in my pain I can find peace and joy and purpose.

He is gentle with me when I struggle with my limitations and when I question the good in my story. He is also faithful to remind me that as I live out a story I never would have chosen for my family, and take up my cross again and again to follow Him, this is the road that leads to everlasting life.

Amanda the Panda, Child Loss Grief, Christmas, Holidays, Sibling Loss, Thanksgiving

Holiday Fear

Hannah

The weather is gearing up, the stores are busy overstocking for the season of holiday celebrations approaching.

As you plan out your feasts and decorations and guests, sit back for a moment and look around you.  There is a child grieving a mother, a sibling grieving a brother, a mother grieving a child.  While the rest of the world is a flurry of anticipation and excitement, there is a heavy ache in the hearts of the homes where a chair will sit empty this holiday.

The celebrations of family and love hold moments of heart-wrench for those who have a loved one no longer present in the gathering.  Look around you this season, I know you will find one of those hearts;  the one that sits quiet in the crowd, that listens with eyes closed to the laughter, wondering how things would have been; the one who avoids the holiday aisles altogether.  Reach out.  Be brave, extend your love, and risk touching a shattered heart in a way they desperately needed.

The first Thanksgiving and Christmas after burying Ellianna were the hardest.  Well, they all have been in different ways, but that first one… the first time I realized there would be no gift shopping, no cooking her favorites, no tiny traced hand prints on Thanksgiving turkeys… well that was the toughest; a holiday season I never dared to imagine.

Much of the facade faded away.  Suddenly the decorations and the perfect Pinterest meal weren’t what my mind lingered on; it was simply the being with the ones I loved.  It became a season of wanting deep memories; the slowing of sweet everyday moments. I could care less if we make a turkey and all the fixings, or just drag ourselves to feast at Golden Corral; the importance is our souls meeting each other wherever we’re at, reveling in each other’s company, savoring the joy of knowing you are making a memory that will long outlast the pumpkin pie.

This is the first time my family will celebrate without my little brother.  There will be heartache when his name isn’t in the secret Christmas gift drawing, there will be sadness when he isn’t standing there in a ridiculous apron with a fresh baked batch of “kitchen trash” in his hands.  What there will be is a coming together of the hearts that love him, miss him, and remember to stop and say “I love you” on this day, this moment.

There is something you can do for the grieving hearts around you.  For many, this is their first holiday season without a cherished person in their lives, and it’s not just in death, it can be a child experiencing their first holidays having to split time between mom’s house and dad’s house, a wife whose husband has chosen another place to live, and yes, the mourning heart that has stood at the grave of someone they held dear.  Send them a card, let them know you are thinking of them and how things will be different this year.  Give them a sweet ornament with their loved one’s name on it.  Invite them to your celebration so they aren’t sitting at home grieving theirs. Sign them up for a holiday cheer box (read about it here).  It means a lot.  In a season where delight and festivity spill from everything around us, there is a pain that you can help soothe.

Let me know how you’re reaching out, I’d love to hear where your hearts are reaching!

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Christmas, grief

Christmas, unraveled.

Hannah

Christmas will be different this year.

I tried to get my Christmas shopping done quickly because I felt so panicked everytime I had to go out.  Seems everywhere I went I was ambushed.  Racks of little Christmas dresses and matching shoes seemed to mock me and stockings embroidered “Baby’s First Christmas” left me feeling punched in the gut. 

There is just such an emptiness, and it feels like in all the cheerful anticipation and bustling, my precious little girl has been forgotten.

People seem to put a time limit on grief, and it seems the older your child is, the more time that is allotted.  I don’t understand this, because there is tremendous grief whether you lost a child that was 10, or a baby that left straight from your womb.  We don’t have Christmas memories to grieve, but we grieve the Christmas memories we will never create. 

Christmas has come although we hoped to wake finding it had already passed this year.  We are thankful to be surrounded by family and are holding our littles ones tighter than ever and breathing prayers of thanks to have them here to share in the joy and the pain. 

Every time I hear “oh hear the angel voices”… my eyes fill with tears because I know my little girl’s voice has joined that angelic choir this year.  I am clinging to the promise that one day I will join her and get to hear that beautiful music for myself…

Until then… I am wrestling this pain and determined that I will choose hope in whatever pit I may find myself standing.

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

                                                                        -Horatio G. Spafford

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