Winter Solstice

Today is the darkest day of the year. The night will be longer and the light shorter than any other day. I think of this as Ella and I go to her advent calendar and pull the treat from the 22nd and place a little bird on the tree. I wonder what this Winter Solstice will hold...

This past week I've indulged myself by watching Christmas movies late at night. I've never thought of "Little Women" as a Christmas movie before but Christmas does come and go several times in it. Finding it strangely comforting, I've watched it over and over the past few days. I sobbed as I watched Beth, the third daughter, get sick and almost die. But then her Marmee comes to her and brings all that a mother can to her child and miraculously, Beth lives. But in the end, even Marmee, the epitome of a good mother, can't keep Beth from going on before them.

Then there is "It's a Wonderful Life". I remember teachers letting us watch it around Christmas time in middle school and thinking it the dullest of movies. It's definitely one of those movies appreciated more by adults perhaps because they identify more readily with the letting go of dreams and with life not turning out as expected. I sobbed this time at the end, when the whole community turned out with pockets full of pennies and dimes and dollars to help save the Building and Loan and this man who had cared for each of them. I cried because it made me think of Sully's playground and of the beautiful response to it. Already just a few generous hearts have donated over $1600 to making it a reality. And Sully is just a baby, unable to do anything for anyone, making it all the more miraculous to me that these hearts would open up and give to him. And, I cry, too, because, like George Bailey, life is not turning out according to my own dream. It is heartbreakingly poetic.

As I watch, I work on Sully's blanket. I've made one for each of my children and now Sully. The others are bright white while winter white seemed a better choice for my little Sully. I've started it three times and finally am coming close to completion. I've never begun something over that many times, but this felt like it had to be just right. Pulling out the chains from the other beginnings had to be done. This blanket will be the one that holds my little boy when he comes. It has to be right. I will finish it in time for Christmas giving Sully another gift under our tree. Ella has placed the first one there, a soft bear she thought should be his first lovey.

Sully, too, will give gifts this Christmas. Sully will add a special book, a story of two brothers, to Zane's leather bound collection begun on his first birthday. It is a story by one of Brad's favorite Western writers whom he read avidly as a young boy. And for Ella, Sully has a lovely little necklace with a delicate gold heart on the chain. I brought home several choices, but when Brad saw this one he knew it was the one. The heart doesn't hang perfectly centered but tilted, like Sully's own sweet little heart, physically imperfect but full of love, I believe, for Ella and Zane.

The light is fully upon me now. The day has begun. How will I walk through these hours knowing that the light will leave so quickly? That the darkness will come more rapidly than any other day of the year?