Christmas 2005.

Recently, I've been back into daydreaming of Sophie Salome as her birthday gradually approaches and the mornings get cold, and remembering the lovely and painful parts of the past three years.

Today I thought of how, when I registered for my shower, I asked for (and received) a fleece and stitched-suede baby-wearing cover and hat. I had a distinct image that day of myself wearing her in it while we picked out a Christmas tree. We would go somewhere and chop our own tree. Bill would actually do the sawing, while I stood back and watched, Sophie barely peeking out of my long, green and white hounds tooth winter coat. In hindsight, I was naive - she would have been so much smaller than I'd imagined at not only two months old. She might have been crying. I might have been nursing in the car while Bill picked out and haltingly lugged down some lopsided fir. We might have gone to a garden center and chosen a pre-cut tree, because trekking a new baby out in snowy December might have seemed foolish. But, in my mind, I was humming carols. And, our cheeks were rosy. She was there, raven hair peeking out from suede hat, and the moment was real and perfect that way.

Then, I think back to the reality of that Christmas. And, I wonder, how did we go through with it? How did we go to a farm and find a tree for our tiny, broken family? Alone, the two of us, silent and absorbed in tears and thoughts, we went through the motions. The still-installed car seat was empty there in the dark back seat. What was there to talk about? We drove there in silence. Out in the world, but entirely inside ourselves. In the evening. We chose a tree. We tied it to the roof. We drive home in silence. We moved the tree into the house. I put away the bouncy seat, after brushing off the dust that had gathered in its creases and folds. And, in its place, stood our pitiful little tree. We decorated it in the dim, candelit living room, taking great pains to place the tiny twinkling ornaments just so.

That tree that stayed until the last needle dropped to the floor is a symbol of something. Maybe the human spirit. Or some necessary resilience. Or just going forward. But, it breaks my heart when I imagine it, standing lit-up there - promising warm meals, and the rustling of bows and paper, and the padding of excited feet. It was the twinkle of lights from windows, hummed songs, and small red velvet dresses. Today I am grateful to that pathetic, blinking, little tree, because I will never forget that room, or its smell, or running my hands over that leather stitched carrier with matching hat. Or what it is to cry these agonizing, real, I'm-alive-and-missing-you tears. I just know, as life winds and cranks forward, there are times like these and that, no matter how the other moments sting and ache dully, as long as this one heart is beating, Sophie will never go away.