Christmas

I love mail.  I love snail mail and email both, and I love going to either mailbox this time of year and seeing what is waiting for me there.  The written word is powerful, and I am grateful for the many people who take the time to share themselves with me in that way.  Ashley, thank you for your lovely card- I hope to meet you someday!

Many have asked how we are finding this Christmas season.  In some ways, last Christmas was our first Christmas with loss, as Ramsy and I had given up working, our social activities became severely restricted, Ramsy was experiencing seizures and increasing symptoms with language and motor skills, and the future was a giant blur of fog.  I think because of all of that, this year's Christmas has not been crushingly difficult, but rather has felt like a pair of shoes that has suddenly become too small.  I know I loved wearing these shoes, I know I have usually felt good wearing them, but when I put them on and try to walk in them as I did before, they pinch.

When I pass our Christmas tree, lit up in the dark and smelling amazing, I think of Ramsy inviting me to join him on the couch to look at it, and there is a pinch.  When I hear his favourite version of "Silent Night" on MercyMe's Christmas album, I remember him cranking it up in our van the first time he heard it, and it pinches again.  When I spent time in Polo Park Mall, where we often did gift shopping or, more typical in the last year, had lunch in the food court and did one errand after a Cancer Care appointment, there were many pinches.  Those parts are hard.  But I still love our tree, and I still listen to Christmas music (although pretty selectively!), and I am still happy to be able to treat my family to gifts, and I will wear these shoes this year anyway, knowing that by next year they may have grown a little bigger again.

The song my heart sings this year is one that fits me now in a different way than it has fit in the past, but it does not pinch:

O come, o come, Emmanuel
and ransom captive Israel 
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.
O come, thou Dayspring,
come and cheer our spirits by thine advent here.
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
and death's dark shadows put to flight.


Peace to you, near and far.
Shannon