ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU

If you can read the title without hearing Mariah Carey singing the ever so popular Christmas song, I dare say I am impressed. It’s a cute love song, but in my head today, as I sat in the passenger seat pulling away from Allorah’s grave… it hit different than ever before.

I have been overwhelmingly blessed today to be surrounded by such great love, and often I asked myself, “What more could I possibly want or need?” Truly, in the physical sense, I want and need for nothing, and I am so crazy grateful. However, in the spiritual sense, I have a need that weighs on my soul heavily. It yearns for the very thing it knows it can never have again. 

Our very human nature thrives on fullness or completeness. Our days revolve around completing necessary tasks and let’s be honest, we all have lonnnnnng to-do lists to fulfill this time of year!

Like a puzzle missing a piece or an unsolved mystery, the feeling that comes along with leaving something undone or incomplete can eat away at you. This is what child loss is like. Life as you know it once had a complete feeling. It was your normal that you didn’t even know existed, until things so tragically changed. Now that your baby is no longer earth side, you’ll never have that complete feeling again. It’s inevitable that your soul will continue to search for that missing piece for the rest of your life. 

This. This truth in itself is devastating. Knowing that no matter what you do even when you should be at your happiest, you’ll still always be excessively aware that something (the greatest something) is missing.

To all of you feeling the ever present sorrow of a missing loved one today and every day, I am deeply deeply sorry. My prayer is that you were able to find some sort of peace in God’s promise and joy in the memories you were blessed with. Isn’t that what it comes down to – the memories. They’re more precious than you ever realize at the present, but as time presses on or you lose one you love, the value is made ever so clear.

The memories made with our Allorah on her first and only Christmas will replay in my head for the rest of my life. They are a precious gift that will allow me to carry on. Selfishly, I want to say “All I Want for Christmas Is You, Allorah!” I want to watch you be so filled with excitement for Santa’s arrival that you struggle to fall asleep on Christmas Eve. I want to watch your eyes light up the next morning when you see that he brought just the thing you wanted most. I want to watch you play alongside Ella and Theo, amongst a land of wrapping paper and mis-matched toys. I want to snuggle you close and watch you sleep after all of the excitement tuckered you out. You are the only thing I need, but can never have again in the way I once knew.

No. Our family will never be “complete” again in the physical sense. However, I have the greatest hope and trust that when we are complete again it will be because we received the most incredible gift of all.

When I think of completeness or fullness in the Bible, I can’t help but think of Jesus saying “It is finished,” as he hung on the cross. In that very moment He had completed the most important task that has ever been given. God’s plan for our salvation was complete… nothing was left undone and because of it, I get the ability to see the very thing I miss most again one day. 

Colossians 2:2 says, “…that their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;” I love this verse. God knew that in this life our hearts would need comforting. In addition to that, He knew we would need confidence to trust in His word and His plan. 

It’s hard (nearly impossible) not to question things. Things that we can’t see with our own two eyes rely on one’s faith to believe that invisible something exists. I can’t see God, but I know without question He has given me all things good in my life including the gift of Allorah. All I will ever truly want and need is her, and although the wait will seem unbearable at times, I know one day our family will be complete again.