Thursday, December 25, 2014

Thursday, December 25, 2014

Tonight's picture was captured in a series of photos to go on the front cover of our Christmas card in 2002. It was Mattie's first Christmas, and for us, this was a very exciting time for our family.... after all it was our first Christmas card as a family of three! We had a snow fall in November that year, so I dressed Mattie up in his Santa suit, placed him in his entertainment saucer with a blanket and brought him out onto our deck! Peter then started snapping photos of Mattie! Basically we were making faces and jumping up and down to try to get Mattie to focus on us and the camera! Peter must have taken at least 40 photos that day. This was one of the photos, but NOT the final one selected for the card! I will show the final photo in a day or so on the blog!


Quote of the day: Christmas — that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance — a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved. ~ Augusta E. Rundel


Today marks our sixth Christmas without Mattie. What does that exactly look like? Well certainly it doesn't look as raw or confusing as the first Christmas or even the second for that matter. With time, the only thing you learn is how to deal with the reality of your predicament. You understand that it isn't changing, it isn't going away, and that no one is going to fix it for you. That other people's lives aren't like yours and not everyone can possibly get what your life is like even if you try to describe it to them. 

For many families, a Christmas tradition may be to decorate together, and then on the actual morning open presents. For Peter and me, such traditions died with Mattie. When Mattie died, in a way the need and value for material things also changed. Certainly we appreciate and value gifts, but to us, the gifts are not what really matters anymore. To us these are only things and are dispensable. One only needs to stop and pause for a moment and realize how quickly kids go through toys and gifts and then they seem to forget about these items.... maybe a month later. If it takes that long. But more meaningful things of substance such as a connection, a feeling, an experience..... these are things and values that last a lifetime. Of course these are things that are harder to create, develop, and nurture. Yet once they are, they are like the greatest gifts on earth. The gift of feeling like you belong to something, to someone, to a cause, and that you have a purpose!

This morning, as I wrote to my "friend in cancer," who is dealing with her second Christmas without her son, I told her to look for signs that her son was with her today! As I wrote that to her, I absorbed this same message for myself. I looked for signs around me in nature for Mattie, but I did not see them outright. It could be that I just wasn't looking closely or in the right places! But as I pause tonight, I do think one thing is abundantly clear whether I saw a sign in nature today or not, Mattie's message lives on within me this Christmas. The message is that life is short, tomorrow is not guaranteed, and the greatest gifts come from helping and connecting with other people.