Loving this time of year.....

     I was at Target this weekend with my boys when we saw Christmas stuff out. I said how the time of year was always my favorite. The boys looked at me with perplexed looks on their faces. "You DO?" Was their response. And it ht me, like a slap across the face. This will be our 4th Christmas without Sterling physically here.

     My boys are little. Four years is a long time. They don't really remember the holidays before. It breaks my heart. Their memories are of a sad Mommy who was on edge most of the holiday season.
I know I tried to be joyful for them. I know that each year has gotten better. But my boys, they feel my longing, they long, for a holiday with Sterling.

     It is now November, a very hard month for me. A month when I can go back over pictures and see my baby's puffy eyes and hands in some pictures and wonder how I didn't see it in life?  When I can look back and think that I should've pushed the doctors to do a chest x-ray. Or wonder why didn't I get a second or third or fifth opinion? And its also the last holiday we spent with Sterling, Thanksgiving.  Sterling woke up on December 1st not feeling well. Sometime in the afternoon he left us. Our lives turned completely upside down.

     We have worked hard at healing our broken hearts. I have decided that I am going to work even harder to take back November. After all, I got two Novembers with Sterling. That is something I can't say for any other month. We got two full Novembers with Sterling. Two Thanksgivings. It is a special month. One that should be celebrated.

     December 1-3 can wait. Those will always be the worst days of my life. And I will deal with them when I get to them. Please keep our little family in your prayers, these next few months are hard for us. But we are going to find the joy in the season. We are going to remember Sterling. We are going to live.