Christmas... Just Not the One I Had Dreamed.

Christmas was a very emotional time for us.  I have cried a lot. I cried alone at my desk, in the car, and after holding other babies at parties.  Jack was missing from everything we did and didn't do this month.  I am usually crazed about anything Christmas: decorations, parties, food, tree lightings, shopping.  I love it all.  This year I did not even want to get a tree because it seemed like too much hassle.  The only thing I wanted to do was send out a Christmas card of our family, on earth and now in heaven.   So I did.  Maybe that is weird or morbid but I honestly don't care.  Jack is our son and he was here with us for 4 months and 26 days and he was going to be in our Christmas card picture.  This is the picture we used, taken at my husband's 30th birthday party in June.  What a happy day that was.

I am thankful that my husband jumped in to save Christmas this year.  He went to get a tree, carefully decorated it, and arranged for us to go to Boston for both Handel's Messiah and the Nutcracker.  He strung the lights outside and put the candles in the windows.  I am so blessed to be his wife.  I have grown to love my husband even more than I ever could have imagined before Jack. We complement each other so well, even in our grief.  It is very rare that we both down on the same day.  One of us is able to encourage and carry the other most days.  He truly picks me up when I just want to lay on the couch and forget about everything.  If he hadn't, this would have been the Christmas that wasn't. 

As time passes it becomes more and more real that we had a baby and now he is gone.  For months it seemed like a terrible dream, a nightmare. Especially when we were in the hospital for 31 days.  It did not seem like real life. Now I have bad dreams when I sleep and then each morning, I awaken to remember that Jack is still gone. 

In all of this mess, I am staying rooted in God's Word each morning. We are also beginning to take the other advice of eating well and exercising. We started working out together with a trainer three mornings a week and I am trying my hand at "clean" cooking.  Cooking (and obsessively combing Pinterest for recipes) occupies my mind and my hands for a while each day...and my husband doesn't mind coming home to a hot dinner either.  My dear friend lets me hold her baby boy at Church on Sundays and feel the sweet warm baby breath as the hymns float up to heaven.  I pray that I will hold another baby of our own next Christmas.  For now I am staying close to God, loving my husband and putting one foot in front of the other each day.

Please pray for us this weekend.  Our elderly dog is in rough shape and we need to put her down.  It will not be easy and I am so thankful that my husband offered to take her.  I just could not be there, considering.... I will stay behind researching goldendoodle puppies. If you know of any looking for homes in New England, let me know.