Christmas Vacation

Well blogging world, sorry for the lack of posts, but due to the busyness of the season, traveling, buying a home, temporarily moving into that home,  a nasty case of the flu or food poisoning, and traveling to visit family in Illinois, I haven't had much time to write - and in a nutshell that's pretty much what I've been up to: being busy, traveling, being sick, and now visiting family. But this post is less about those things and more about what this Christmas has been like without Hailey so far.

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Last year at this time we had Hailey with us but were so busy taking care of her and not getting out of the house much, that we didn't buy Hailey a Christmas stocking, and I'm not sure honestly if I would have known whether to get one for her or not considering.... But this year I made a decision that every Christmas Hailey will have a stocking that hangs with the rest of our family's. About a month or so ago I found a pretty pink baby stocking at a store and bought it for her. I wanted to have it hanging up this Christmas, but, unfortunately, due to some lack of communication and the craziness of all our travels, we left her stocking back in Alabama...

While I knew I wanted to have a stocking hanging for Hailey every Christmas, I was still a little unsure about it... How sad it would look sitting there empty... A sad reminder she's not here. But after talking with some other moms who've lost their babies and some wonderful suggestions for this dilemma, we came up with some great ideas of little gifts we could fill her stocking with each year. Some of my favorite ideas are to place bulbs or flower seeds in her stocking each Christmas to plant in a garden in her memory each year in the spring and another idea was to buy a collectible item each year in memory of her. For us, butterflies have become quite significant and are now wonderful reminders of our little girl, so some years we might buy some sort of butterfly gift to put in her stocking.

After realizing we'd left Hailey's stocking back in Alabama, we still wanted to start the tradition of buying a gift in memory of her each Christmas to feel like she's still a part of Christmas with us. So while waiting for our table at Cracker Barrel the other night, I stumbled upon the most beautiful wire and stone sculpture of a butterfly. It's designed to hang on a vase or something similar. The one we picked out has a rainbow of colors, and I think it's just perfect... So no stocking hanging for Hailey this year, but we do have a butterfly on the mantle next to ours.

So far the Christmas season without Hailey has been better than I'd expected as I'd mentioned before. I think it's because I know the hope and joy in the meaning behind the season and can truly find joy and celebration and reason to rejoice this season - because it's all about the birth of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who'd I'd be lost and hopeless without and how I know Hailey is with in Heaven. So in that respect, my faith allows me to find the positive in this season, but of course, it's still hard without her.

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Today Josh and I were able to go visit Hailey's grave together. It's the first time he's been there since last January, and he hadn't yet seen her gravestone in person. It's hard to describe what it's like to go to your child's grave. Part excitement at seeing her and being near to her. Part sorrow... for the obvious reasons. I have to say, it felt somewhat peaceful and maybe even a bit magical (for lack of a better word) there when we went this evening. It was around sunset, a little glow of light to light our way, a serene blanket of white snow covering the ground. As I approached her grave, I smiled at seeing the fresh footprints in the snow of someone who had recently been there to visit her. Her Grandma Sue had bought her Christmas flowers and they laid in front of her gravestone. Then my eyes focused on a little yellow toy plow sitting next to them. I knew immediately it was from my brother, her Uncle Matt (who drives a snowplow for the village). I hadn't expected to see that token and gift there from him. It almost made me cry, but I didn't. Honestly, I didn't let myself, although I easily could have.  We didn't stay long; we had somewhere to be. And if it wasn't so frigidly cold, I could stay at her grave forever....just feeling close to her in the only way I can physically feel close to her. You might think it strange, maybe even a bit morbid, but a part of me longed to just lie down on the ground and hug it as though I was hugging her....

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As the time draws closer to being gathered together with families and parties and actual Christmas day, etc., things are getting harder. Mostly because I sit back and watch everyone with their families, their children, their babies, their joys...and miss mine. They seem complete, and I feel incomplete. I smile in celebrating for many of the same reasons they are, yet behind my smile is the hole in my heart... the constant knowing and living without my baby who I can't help but have that feeling like she should be here... even though I know that's not what God intended.

And so some of you may wonder (and I'm sorry that some of you know), what's it like to spend your first Christmas without your baby...

I sit in front of the fireplace and look at the stockings representing our family members....and can't help but focus on the emptiness, the spot that's missing hers.

I buy toys and wrap presents for our nephew... and can't help but miss not being able to do the same for my daughter.

I go to church services and Christmas parties and celebrate the birth of Jesus and being with family... and can't help feeling the part of me that's missing that becomes all to apparent as I watch families smiling and laughing together longing to be them, not understanding why I can't be a part of that 'world.'

Parents buy gifts, wrap presents, play Santa, give kisses and cuddles, and millions of other little things with their children this Christmas...and I sit back and watch the world go on around me oblivious to the fact that I'll be going to the store to buy a present for my daughter, but it will be one she'll never get. It'll be one she'll have resting on her grave....there as an attempt at expressing our love for her and our only way to say "Merry Christmas" to her.

And so this Christmas, I'm finding peace and joy and hope because of Jesus and the reason we're celebrating, but I also silently live inside of myself grieving, missing my daughter.