Day 321

I am sitting here after Thanksgiving listening to Christmas music while we put up our tree and soaking in all the smells and the memories this season brings. I know this time of year can also bring deep seated pain to light, things you try to forget most of the year are suddenly so very real. When you are sad, or angry, or lonely those feelings seem to be amplified. If that is where you are, know it won't last forever. I would like to share a bit from my book, something my mother wrote after Ethan died.

“The Stocking Left Hanging”

Christmas Eve – 1981 – The kids are in bed, finally sleeping.  Excitement kept them up long past their bedtime.  Steve and I prepare for their awakening and Santa’s arrival.  On the rocker we put Laura’s gifts and fill her stocking.  At Twelve years old there is more clothes and less toys.  Her special gift an electric blanket will keep her feet as warm as her heart.

Betsy, 6, has toys to be taken out of boxes and set up.  A doll house, doll furniture, a “pajama gown,” if I left it up to her she would wear it the rest of the year.  Also a Bible, she is reading now.

For Seth, 5, the toys have to be put together.  Transposing instructions into reality is not as easy as A to B.  No bike this year.  Not much candy in his stocking either.

We sit on the hearth letting the fire warm our backs and burn the scrap paper, boxes and those impossible instructions.  As we sit there our eyes stray to the woodbox gate and we see one stocking still there – Ethan’s.  We break.

This was the second Christmas without him and in many ways much harder to bear than last Christmas.  Was it that we has forgotten the pain or were we still in shock that first Christmas?  Maybe we just didn’t know how much we would miss him.

Steve and I were pleased with our family 2 girls and 2 boys.  On August 6, 1980 I let Laura, 10, and Ethan, 6, ride their bikes a quarter of a mile to the neighbors.  That ride Ethan never finished.  A car coming up behind them struck and killed him.

The pain in those words is so hard to describe.  How to explain the deep black hole where your heart usually is.  How to explain to Betsy that Ethan won’t be helping her get to her kindergarten class.  To Seth why he must sleep alone in his room.  To soothe Laura’s anxiety when the children are out of her sight.  For Steve and I, to learn how to live with a broken heart.  Parts of our lives were as empty as that stocking.

How we got through grief, depression, loneliness, the emptiness, feeling that one more breath was too much, and despair is a long, loving tale – God, who gave us Christ in that first Christmas, sustained our family.  He gave us the strength to survive – the peace and joy to learn how to live again.

This was not a one time gift, as candy in a stocking soon eaten and forgotten, but one that is there when the need for it arises  That need for God comes every day – some days every second, every breath.

As I read this, my heart breaks a little, but that gift has sustained me throughout my life. Whether my pain was inflicted by someone else, some mess I got myself into, or like now an illness I have no control over, that gift is what makes life so wonderful even in the midst of pain. I have no idea how people who know nothing about Who God really is handle the horrific things life inevitably throws at them. 

Growing up, every Christmas, before we could do anything we would all pile up in my parents bed and we would read the Christmas Story from the Bible. My mother's favorite was Luke. As we grew older and had families of our own we would read the story on Christmas Eve, I think this year we will start a new tradition. I want to read the story my mother wrote of a Christmas long ago when God alone sustained our family. She will be proud to know that her little story has officially been published even if it is just in my blog. I really hope it touches you and in some way can make a difference in your life. 

This Christmas I know will be very special, and I have a feeling that big changes are coming for my family. But for now I am going to soak in every moment, enjoy my family and our life...even if it is being stuck right here on this stupid couch.