Ya know how every year when you put up the Christmas tree you reminisce about the people you love, with the people you love? Yeah. We did that this morning. My favorite thing still is unwrapping the ornaments and remembering what each one means. What each one meant. How some have dual meaning or a whole new meaning this year. How some you’ve forgotten what exactly they mean but they’re still so special to you. It was just dan, mav me and acey and we were decorating the tree when our jubilee was happily interrupted by a phone call from my favorite aunt. I like to think that when she misses my mom she calls me, because I know when I miss my mom she’s the one I go to. We talked about packages that are coming in the mail, and how a card I sent her, made her thanksgiving. After we hung up I felt filled up, but also felt the looming sadness overcome me once again. I blinked a few extra times for a few minutes to bat the tears away to try and make this moment unsad, but then dan started having a memory out loud. Funny how some things that surrounded my moms passing are still so foreign and not at the tip of my brain, because I was so razor focused on trying to freeze into my memory something else at that exact moment. But dan said to me today “do you remember when your mom was….” and trailed off because I guess it still sucks for dan too, to say “died” because dying sucks. Imagine that. So anyway he recalled her being so worried about Allie. Like terrified and probably one of the main reasons she ever fought as hard as she did. One of the main reasons she hid how terrible she felt all those months. One of the main reasons she really felt alive at all. She asked dan, and yes I was in the room, but this was her moment with dan and she asked him “who will take care of my baby girl” and dan with a stern face and all the warmth in the world inside his eyes, he made a single statement, two words, and with so much weight and promise he said “I will.” And she must have trusted him and known what a good man my husband really was.. is. Even in that moment we had no idea what the reality would soon become. Death and dying plays some funny fucking tricks inside your brain and heart and logic. After all we have been through in our family since my mom has left this earth, somehow we still have love in our hearts and we care for each other. As my mom would say “we really give a shit about each other!” Though somehow we have moved through the months and found ways to make the hurt, throb a little less, we are still hurting. We have learned a lot about how my mother was the glue, the woman and the man of the family. The matriarch. The queen. I suppose she was the king too. The one who kept it all together. The important things, the trivial things, important dates, little trinkets of love, boundary-less love. This holiday season has been, dare I say, harder than the first set of holidays without her here. Maybe because shock was still protecting me last year. Maybe because my grief and disbelief was thicker last year. Maybe because people we thought would never make this loss harder, have made it just that. Harder. Than it ever had to be. But this year it is front and center that when I need her the most, she appears somehow. Today it was a song stopping in the middle and then “happy holidays” almost interrupting the previous song. Fun fact: this happened while dan was memory-ing out loud, and happy holidays was a song dan would sing overrrrrr and over again, consistently, just one part to drive my mom NUTS. So mom, thanks for that. And dan, thanks for that too. I just wish I could sit around my Christmas tree with my mom. And since I can’t have my mom here with me and my babies and my husband, then I wish I could sit with all her best friends who would talk about her like the queen she was. Telling us tales and stories about their childhood, their teen years, catholic school days, raising babies days, karaoke days, just ya know, her best days. Who would have ever thought my mom’s glory days would be one of the things I wish I could hear about MOST. Ugh. My heart. Well, I want to wish all my people the happiest holiday season. Do things intentionally and with your heart exposed. If you don’t, it’s not worth it. Love harder than you have to, forgive, forget. Love people who love you. Protect the people who protect you. If someone wants to be in your life, you’ll know it, because it’ll feel GOOD. I hope everyone has a healthy, happy, blessed and of course MERRY Christmas. As for me I’m loving up my three favorite guys, my newest roomie, and oh – before I forget – I welcomed my first nephew on my side and he is the perfect, most dreamiest little Apache baby alive. Send him all the love and blessings in your heart for me, would ya? Because new babies deserve to be covered in l o v e.

Oh hi perfect 💙