Small Hours

There’s something so bittersweet about Christmas night after the kids go to sleep.  The space under the tree is empty, trash bags are filled with wrapping paper that so carefully covered treasures only hours before.  It comes and goes so quickly.  I barely realized it was here and it was gone.

But it was a wonderful day, one in which my adorable son exclaimed “I can’t believe this is really happening” as I set up his and his sister’s new iPod touches, and a day he declared the “Best Christmas ever.”  He’s quite the expert now, having been through 7 of them.

The kids made out like bandits this year, and the adults didn’t do too shabby either.  Despite being in the midst of the winter crud, both kids were thrilled with everything they opened and were more than happy to sit and watch others open presents and enjoyed spending time with their family.  It was beautiful to see them wait expectantly while their auntie or their Nana Deborah opened presents they were more than excited to give them.  This was the first year they really shopped for us and for each other, and they truly seemed to delight in the joy of giving as much as receiving.   Well, almost as much.

We’re still fully entrenched in the magic of Santa, thankfully.  At 2 oclock this morning, I woke to Julia’s coughing over the monitor, and I went in to check on her.  When I went into her room, she told me she “went downstairs and Santa came and he brought Nate a bike!!!!”  I said, “I know, and there’s a whole bunch for you, too, isn’t there?”  Yes, she replied, and I asked her to lie down and go back to sleep.  She begged for me to snuggle with her.  I squeezed in next to her in her twin bed, and asked her to close her eyes and go to sleep.  “I can’t,” she said breathlessly, “I can’t stop thinking about the presents!”  I giggled with her and pulled her close so she could match her breathing with mine as I slowed down and drifted off.  I slept with her like that for about an hour or so, before moving back to my own bed.

One of our traditions is the family service at church on Christmas Eve.  It includes the children’s pageant, and at the end the children of the congregation are invited to sit up at the front to view the scene and listen to Dean Baker give a special sermon directed at them.  Every year, we have encouraged our children to go up front with the other kids, and ever year they go, but only because one of us accompanies them.  Until this year.  For the first time, they went up and didn’t look back.  They sat attentively, responded in all the appropriate places, and came running back when it was done.  They followed along and sang with the words in the church program, reading the words all on their own.  They sat at our fancy Christmas Eve dinner out and behaved themselves as if we go out to fancy dinners all the time.

As grown up as they seemed last night, when I climbed into bed to snuggle with my daughter last night, I marveled at how much she’s still my baby girl.  Her little body still fits so easily in my arms.  She still comes running when she’s hurt or doesn’t feel well.  And while “snuggle with me” may just as easily be a stall tactic as it is anything else, I know that asking for such a thing won’t be part of her repertoire much longer.

Christmas, for me, has always been a milestone marker – much like birthdays and the start of the school year.  I’ve struggled a lot this year with watching as my kids transition to true schoolkids.  And yet, instead of seeing them this Christmas as the big kids they are becoming, I felt like I saw in them a glimpse of the part of them that will always be my babies.  The way my daughter snuggles into me when she doesn’t feel well and the way my son comes running for a thank you hug without any reservation and almost knocks me over – these are the moments I’ll be able to put in my pocket and take out years from now when the days are filled with rolled eyes and “leave me alone.”

I love Christmas, for so many reasons but, in large part because it forces me every year to take stock – to remind myself that I have so much to be thankful for.  It’s so easy to get lost in the minutiae of the grind – work, infertility, money – and forget to take pleasure in the little things.  Not the presents or the big fancy dinner, but the time spent enjoying each other’s company.  The memories.  The love.

Merry Christmas, and whether you celebrate the holiday or not, I hope the spirit of the holiday reaches your heart the way it does mine and reminds you to stop and breathe in the little wonders in your life.

These small hours.  These are the ones that matter.

Worthy of Their Memory

I need to talk about something else.  I need to think about something else.  And then, talking and thinking about something else seems selfish when there are others who are living it.

Yesterday morning was a hurried, rainy day drop off at school.  I gave hugs and kisses from inside the car and shooed them off to the dry cafeteria where they meet on rainy mornings.  I cried when I left.  My friend Amy texted late in the day to say that the kids all seemed blissfully unaware during her time volunteering in the classroom, and I finally exhaled. 

Today was a “regular” day.  One where I hang out with them on the playground and walk them to their classes.  And as I rounded the corner to leave I saw the police car parked in front of the office, and the officer standing guard on the sidewalk.  I instantly teared up, and as I walked by him I could barely get out, “thank you for being here.” 

I’m not going to use my blog as a space to air or discuss my political views on where we go or what we do from here.  I refuse.  I will participate in the larger discourse, I just don’t feel right engaging in it in this space.  I will take the same challenge Mel did, from Dyke in the Heart of Texas – to remember at least one name of a victim, so that the killer’s name is not what I will remember. 

This is Avielle Richman.  She had curly brown hair and loved horses and swimming.  And when I see her I see my daughter.  I will remember Avielle.  I will remember her when I kiss my kids at drop off, and when I tuck them in at night.  I will remember Avielle as the face of Sandy Hook.  When someone talks of Adam Lanza, I will whisper Avielle’s name twice, because her name should be associated with Sandy Hook rather than his. 

In President Obama’s speech in Sandy Hook, he said:

God has called them all home.  For those of us who remain, let us find the strength to carry on, and make our country worthy of their memory.

Worthy of their memory.  There is much work to do here.  And I think we start by never forgetting.  By always bringing with us the memory of how we feel about that heinous day.  No matter how passionately we argue about the politics, we cannot forget that there are faces behind the statistics. 

Avielle.  May we always be worthy of your memory. 

Heartbroken

It would be easy to say I’ve been numb since the news hit Friday morning.  The truth is I wish I had been numb.  Numb would be preferable to the sheer horror, the shock, the abject fear and devastation that I’ve cycled through all weekend.  The only thing that stopped me from driving to the twins’ school and bringing them home is that I knew it would only frighten them unnecessarily.  And since I had no intention of telling them what happened, I felt like it was more appropriate to allow them to finish their day as if it were any other day rather than assuage my fears by confusing them.

Friday was supposed to be “date night.”  We were supposed to get a rare night out while the kids hung out with their auntie and went to the movies.  I couldn’t stomach the thought of them being away from us any longer than the school day, so I texted Heidi and asked her if she was ok with a family dinner out.  She agreed.  She, too, had spent the day off and on in tears, turning off the news only to have to turn it back on again.  I had a work event to attend in the afternoon, and begged her to tell me once she had the kids with her.  She texted that there were many more parents at pickup than normal – my guess is the after-school programs were markedly sparse Friday afternoon.  Blissfully unaware of why their teachers were squeezing them extra tightly as they sent them off for the weekend, the twins were eager to tell stories of cupcakes and projects and tales of playground antics.

When I finally walked through the door after a tearful drive home, I could barely contain my emotions.  Julia asked me why I was crying, and Heidi told her I had missed her all day.  That seemed to satisfy her.  And when Julia and Nate took to the couch to play with the iPads so I could get ready to go to dinner, I took a step into the hall and sobbed for about 5 minutes.  We spent a nice evening at dinner and Christmas shopping, and when it came time to put them to bed, I sat with each of them just a little longer, hugged them both a little tighter.

I’ve spent most of the weekend staying away from the news.  It’s too much.  And facebook is worse.  The yelling and screaming at each other about the politics of tragedy, as if somehow anything anyone says about the “musts” and the “shoulds” will change anything at all.  No matter what we do from here, it won’t change the fact that 20 innocent babies died.  It won’t change the fact that teachers sacrificed themselves to save their students.  It won’t change the fact that dropping all of our children off at school tomorrow will be petrifying in a way we never wanted to imagine.

Today was a run day.  I’m a week off in my half-marathon training because of a fender bender two weeks ago.  So instead of 8 miles today, my scheduled run was 3.  It wasn’t raining, so I opted for an afternoon run outside.  As soon as I stepped outside in the cold I could feel the tears well up.  I knew where I had to go. 

The twins’ school is just over a mile and a half from our house.  I’ve used our route to school as a running route many times before and used the school as my turnaround point – a halfway point of sorts.  Today it was my destination.  As I rounded the second to last corner before the school I struggled not to cry.  I crossed the street in front of the school and could see a pink jacket on the playground, discarded, no doubt, by a student playing at recess who got too warm and then neglected to pick it up on the way back into class.  But when I saw that jacket, laying there on the playground, I lost it. I walked the short distance between the “big kid” playground and the kindergarten playground and sobbed. 

I needed to be there.  I needed to see that it was the same place.  I needed to see that it’s the same place I’ve dropped the twins off at and picked them up from over a hundred times.  I needed to cry there today so I don’t cry there tomorrow.  

I caught my breath and started back towards home. 

Tomorrow, I have to load the kids in the car, drive them to school, and leave them there.  I will never look upon the simple task of dropping them off at school the same way again.  Our mornings have been frustrating the past few weeks, and I always make sure before I leave school that each of them has had a hug and a kiss and an “I love you.”  Nothing will change for them.   For me, though, it will become as my friend Mel calls it, an act of faith. 

I don’t know where we go from here.  As a society.  As parents.  As guardians of all the children, regardless of whether we are parents or not.  I just know that even as an adult, it’s possible to still have innocence left to be stolen.