A special Christmas gift for me

Our sweet girls

We are visiting my brother in South Carolina so we stopped off to spend the night with the kids on the way over here. We went to the girls' day care so that we could see them at pick up time when their parents came to get them. Vivian, our 17-month-old, was a bit confused to see Mimi in her classroom suddenly, and being the independent little girl she is, she let her Grandpa and me give her a hug and quickly got down to run around in the day care and show us how she knew her way around.

We made our way to Rosie's room where she was playing with some kids. Rosie (our 3-year-old) spotted me looking for her through the window and yelled at the top of her little lungs, "THAT"S MY MIMI!!!" We came in and she ran as fast as she could to jump into my arms. She just hugged me and hugged me. She got down to run to her Grandpa and then ran back to hug me again.

She asked if I could ride with her in the car, so I went with her and my son to "The Pancake Store" (Cracker Barrel) where we were eating that evening. After a wonderful time of dinner and fellowship we went home to get the girls ready for bath time and bed time. As we came into the house, I was on the couch when Rosie came over and hugged me. She said, "I'm so glad you are here, Mimi. I'm so glad you came to see me."

Her sweet, innocent little heart just gave me the best Christmas gift I have ever gotten or will probably ever get. Rosie had no idea what she gave me. But I will never forget it. So, Merry Christmas to everyone, and I hope you get as wonderful a gift as I received this year.

Go where you wanna go

We're doing the usual Christmas stuff. It just hit me that we are going to the places we went with Lauren again and again. I got a knot in my stomach just thinking about it right now. How do you escape from this? Move away and never come back? That doesn't sound practical! And what would happen to all our memories? It's the pain that keeps coming back, but it keeps her with me. It hurts me to go to places she went to and it hurts me to go places she's never been. So... I think I'll leave well enough alone and live with these twinges of pain when they come. It's better than never having any memories and never feeling her presence with me. I do feel her when I think of those memories and that is perfectly ok.

I couldn't find any purple flowers

Usually I try to put flowers for the liturgical season on Lauren's grave. I had some fall flowers with leaves and acorns that I put there in the beginning of October and thought, "I'll get some purple flowers for Advent."

Now Advent is pretty short this year for some reason. I thought I had plenty of time, but with folks coming for Thanksgiving, work, church, gym and football season, I let it get away from me.

I live in a small town with limited access to artificial flowers. I thought I was being smart by getting her Christmas flowers when they first came out. No purple flowers in either store I looked in at the beginning of Advent, though.

For some reason, this is bothering me. I know it is not important in the scheme of things, but I feel like I have let her down.

I'll make sure I get her flowers for Lent.

Even Christmas cards can be tough

I used to send a newsy Christmas card every year-full of all the things my kids were doing, and how busy our lives were. I think people enjoyed getting them, or at least I hope they did.

When we lost Lauren, I stopped doing that. I just couldn't do it anymore. I sent a card and tried to put a small note in it to people, but the wind had been knocked out of me, so I am sure my scrawly handwriting was probably not appreciated much.

Aaron grew up, and was gone and Richard and I had an empty nest. Not much to say in a quiet house sometimes. At least not many interesting things to say, in my mind.

I've come to grips with the newsletter thing now, but this year I decided to try something new. I got one of those pre-printed "photo" cards and Anna and Aaron were generous enough to let us put the grand babies on it. Now, over the years, friends and family have sent us pictures with their great-looking grandchildren, and I was always a bit envious, I must say.

So I decided to ask our kids if we could join in the fun. They said yes, so I found a design I liked with a religious theme, and set to work to get a photo of those two jewels. Over Thanksgiving, the girls dressed in the matching Christmas dresses we bought for them; we set them on our knees in front of our fireplace and Anna snapped a few good pics of us.

We are aware the dressing alike phase will pass quickly as they emerge into the little personalities they are destined to be, so we are enjoying this little phase, too. It did both of us good to think all the people on our Christmas card list will get a stunning photo of the girls and a pretty good photo of the old folks this year.

Rosie is getting to the age when Christmas is going to be fun again, and we can't wait to see how she enjoys all the little things about the season and what Santa gives her. We're excited about the gifts we have bought for both girls, and to see their little eyes light up gives me new hope.

For now, enjoy with us, these little blessings....