In our fourth home?
Wrapping up our third year of marriage?
Spending our second major holiday away from any family?
Our first Christmas without our baby girl?
I have to thank you for everything you've given me this year.
A gorgeous daughter.
Words of reassurance, notes of encouragement.
Time, as much as you have had.
Support and solidarity.
Attention and affection.
Intimacy and intention.
Fierce love to me and to our child.
The arms you've wrapped around me in the moments I've been most inconsolable.
The eyes that have cried with mine.
The hands you held mine in on the best days and the hardest days of my life- consequently the best and hardest days of yours.
There's so much more. You are a good man and a good husband and a good father, and it isn't fair how many times a day I fail you as a wife that you are still all of these things. You are constant. I am moved every moment that God has given me you.
But I know that this year has been hard. The most trying of our whole lives, let alone the nine years we have known each other. I hope that it's the hardest we ever do have. That we will be able to look back on it and say, "Yep, that was easily the worst thing we've ever gone through".
We've lived a whole six months without our precious Eden. How did we ever live before her? I know you miss her every moment.
We've lost treasured relationships with family and friends. We've walked through more loss with new friends. We've started to endure "firsts" that are so different inside our own circumstance of parenting. We have argued and pulled away from each other and whispered hoarse sorry's in a dark bedroom. We have turned volumes up on televisions and radios to drown out the quietness that a child's cries and giggles should fill.
We have had to learn to be gentle with ourselves, because the world has stopped being so gentle with us. It took three months for others to try and judge this pain or dictate our grief. It took five for us to decide our grief isn't about them.
We have had to unsettle and move and settle again.
We haven't been able to even think about attending church.
Social anxiety.
Depression.
Life keeps going, and our hearts are just broken.
So, I won't tell you Merry Christmas. It's not merry. You know better than I can say, we aren't too jolly. And that is okay. We do not have to put on a happy face for each other. We can be real. There are much too few gifts under the tree that we forced ourselves to put up and there are stockings we didn't even bother to hang. We've turned off carols and only attempted traditional movies.
But, as you have constantly reminded me this year, there is still good. If it cannot be merry, it can be good. And it is.
We grew a baby together this year. Her daddy's twin, actually. And she was born. And we held her. And she breathed. And she stopped breathing. And it was so peaceful and beautiful and it aches in my bones but damn, I'd do it over every day to see the way you looked at her again. We met our very prayed for Eden girl. We're the parents of a very special kid that makes a difference even today.
We also grew our marriage. You proposed to me three years ago on Christmas Eve. And when I said yes, I never imagined "for better or for worse" would happen at the same time. What a test of our love and our commitment and our faith?! I could not be more glad that I am your wife and get to do this beautiful and painful thing with you.
I am so proud of us. Our family is proud of us. Our kiddo is proud of us. Gold star for us.
We have figured out new ways to honor her and ways to take care of ourselves. We have become better individuals.
That I can not know who I am and also be so sure of who I am and be okay with it... that makes me a new woman, whatever I am. And I believe that I've somehow become a better wife, as I know I must first take care of myself before I can take care of you.
Then, that you can find peace in your identity so quickly in whatever situation... that even as you change you are a constant for me.
We got out of town. We did something for ourselves and went away. The guilt, oh the initial guilt of the genuine enjoyment inside unending grief is so real. But, it was good for us. And it was for us and no one else, which is the best part. To be alone, together, and away is one of the best and most healthy things we could have done for ourselves this time of year. To see your smile is the sweetest thing.
Then, we have these people. All of these amazing people. Strangers and blood and everything in between. They wake up thinking of us, they go to bed thinking of us. They cover us in prayer and tell us that WHATEVER is right for us is the only right. People that remind us that we are loved.
They bless us daily and they say her name.
We are favored.
I've felt so close to Mary and Joseph this month. I'm reminded there are no mistakes, that even when choosing who will parent our children, God fearfully pieces the fabric of our lives together.
Thanks to the Son they were chosen to carry and raise, the Son we quietly, mournfully celebrate this week... We are forgiven and will be as blameless as our perfect child on the day we get to meet her again and spend eternity in His presence.
When we are looking back and calling this the worst thing we've been through... I believe we will also call it the best, the most real, and the part of our lives where our blessings were most evident.
No, I cannot wish you a merry Christmas this year, my handsome man.
But I can and will wish you a gentle one.
I can only hope that your heart is quieted and that your mind is eased. That together, we can just breathe and make it through. That we can remember all we have to be thankful for.
That even in this empty ache, we are filled to the brim with peace.
I love you more than I loved you yesterday, but not as much as I'll love you tomorrow.
