Christmas HOPE

It is Christmas night.  The presents have all been opened.  The dinner had been prepared and eaten.  The DIY addition projects are still underway, but that is never ending for now.  We are at the end of the day, after a long and wonderful, but always hard week.

The kids having spent all day playing with new toys and helping Daddy with construction stuff and I've spent most of the day doing some help on the house, a LOT of cleaning up Christmas carnage, and a decent amount of cooking to make a dinner special.  And like every other day of my life, I spent all day thinking about my Jameson.

Tomorrow marks eight years.  Eight years ago he died.  How could it already be eight years? How have we lived this long without him?

This season has been filled with distractions with the new puppy, and the house addition, and finishing up grad school, so I haven't been able to write or really process my feelings well now for a while. But now I'm done with grad school.  Holy buckets, that in and of itself is crazy and a whole different story. The short one is that I now have a masters in Pastoral Theology and plan to start an internship at the hospital next fall to become a hospital chaplain. The long story is a book, I'm afraid. Not one I'm sure I'm ready to write.  Ha.

But here I am and here we are together and it's Christmas.  Christ's birthday.  AMEN.

We went to midnight mass last night and it was a little bit of a train wreck. I had in my mind candles and full out orchestra and magic.  How it really went down was spending 30 minutes trying to wake up Hubs (who has only been sleeping like 3-4 hrs a night in order to finish DIY projects) and then get to church and have all three family members fall asleep during the mass.  I'm totally going to throw Hubs under the bus, because it was SO FUNNY.  At one point he fell asleep and woke up, but wasn't quite awake enough to know where he was...and it just happened to be at a very quiet part of the mass and he, quite loudly, exclaimed, "OH MY GOSH I"M SO TIRED" and I'm pretty sure the priest probably heard him.  Little Man and I were trying to not laugh loudly.  It was so funny.  Bless this mess that is my life.  Ha!

We are also living in Jumanji and losing.  Lord have mercy, my home is always a disaster of epic proportions, with insulation, and wiring, and new holes in the wall daily kind of madness.  If we all survive I'll be pleasantly surprised.  Especially the puppy.

So I suppose we have a little bit of excitement and drama going on, but overall, I can't even express my joy at life.  Everything is so magical and perfect and life is grand.  I think Jameson would be really happy to hear me say that. It's weird, to write that and think that -as if life after losing a child should ever be good.  But it is.  Its still a gift, even in the bittersweet pain of mourning that will never end, and really never could.  But I am happy, we are happy, and life is such a gift and we are so thankful for every second of it.

But damn.  He's still gone.

Today I am conflicted. Full of grace. Full of Joy.  Full of love. And also full of sadness and wistful longing for what might have been.  I miss my son.  And I want the life we should have had.  But I also want the life I already have and I don't know how that fits together, other than understanding that God's plan is always the best one, even if it kinda sucks in the short term.  I've learned how to grit my teeth in thanks in the short term, knowing the truth that later it will all be right.  But this still sucks, even eight years later.

The weather here has been amazing.  Sunny and dry, which truly feels like a Christmas miracle.  But tomorrow the rain comes back and it feel just right.  As if the whole world is in mourning with me.  Tomorrow morning we say goodbye to Jameson once again.  And we all feel the sting of the heartbreak and pain just a strongly as it was eight years ago.  But we also feel the hope for what is to come.

We look forward to the day we will see him again. And we see the connection of today with tomorrow so profoundly.   Therefore, today, this day of Christ's birth, we acknowledge our pain and our longing in light of the cross.  And we celebrate this day of Christ's birth all the more joyfully, knowing how much it changes tomorrow.  We have sadness tomorrow, but HOPE for eternity.

Eleven

Oh Jameson, how are you already 11?  My sweet boy.

I miss you with all of my heart and soul.  I've been watching a slide show of all of my favorite pictures from your life and they make me so happy. 

But also, oh the heartache, because we are missing 8 years of pictures and memories and time. 

Some of my favorite pictures of you are with your brother and your doggies.  Oh how you loved your doggies.  I remember so many times at the table hearing you giggle and looking over to see you had shoved your hands into your yogurt up to your wrists and then were letting the dogs lick it off you.  Farkie and Flick just loved hanging out with you at the table.  Ha!  It gives me so much joy to think about how much fun your are having with them in heaven, even though we miss all three of you so much here! 

We aren't getting balloons this year to celebrate your birthday.  And the dinosaurs are all packed up.  This year, we are adopting a puppy on your birthday.  I can't imagine a gift you would have loved more.   And of course we'll have cake to celebrate 11 years of Jameson! 

Even though you were only here for three years, you, my boy, have profoundly left your mark on this world and we will always celebrate our J Day.  Happy Birthday Jameson.  I hope 11 is grand. 

All my love,
Mom