December.....

     This month begins with memories of the three worst days of my life. The first, second and third. The days Sterling died. Then comes the hustle and bustle of the season. Getting everything ready and just so for Christmas. I also have a son who has a birthday Christmas Eve. He will be eight this year.  He has struggled the most, outwardly anyway, of all my children.  He saw so much more then his brothers that day. He harbors the most anger. He is also my sweetest, most kind hearted child who, at the age of three, was watching a story about the Haitian orphans and ran to his piggy bank and told me to send them his money so they could have food and clothes and toys. He also asked me if we could adopt any of them. He had just turned three.

     The year Sterling died, when I could barely function, his fifth birthday was just twenty-one days after. But we got him a cake. We sang to him. We tried so hard to celebrate his life. He smiled in the pictures. He seemed unaware that I had lost track of time and my oldest daughter had gone out and bought his cake that morning. He waited so patiently to blow out his candles. I would find out later during a nightmare and the crying that always followed what he wished for. He wished for his baby brother back. In his newly turned five year old mind, birthday wishes come true. Sterling was coming back. He was so devastated to learn that was not ever going to happen, no matter how good we are or how much we want it to happen.

     This December we have been down with a the flu and strep. We have been forced to sit at home. To sleep. To relax. I thought that as we were all beginning to feel better, we should put up our tree. This child of mine, who has always delighted in this season of giving and his birthday, he begged me not to put the tree up. He became naughty. He did everything in his power to deflect from his very painful sadness that this season now brings us.

     When I sat alone with him, he began to cry. He pleaded with me not to put the tree up. He had changed his mind and he didn't want Christmas this year. We talked. I told him how this time of year hurts me too. It is hard to celebrate family when such a loved piece of ours is no longer physically here to celebrate with us. But we can still love Christmas. We can still find some joy. Those things can coexist with the pain. I told my son, who is almost eight, that its ok for us to be sad. We can even feel cheated and angry. But we can't stop living. Life will keep moving forward, with or without us. And I want to be a part of it. Because as long as we are a part of it, so is Sterling. "Because he is always in our hearts...." Yes, my sweet, almost eight year old, yes.