After Our Son Died, My Husband Gave Me The Most Meaningful Christmas Gift Of My Life

Throughout the week, I prepared bottles and cut chicken nuggets and strawberries into tiny bites. We sang songs and read books, and I remembered what it was like to look forward to nap time.

By the end of the week, we were worn out but satisfied. My friend came to pick up Will, and I witnessed him meeting his baby brother for the first time, and my heart was so full.

We did it. We spent a week with a living, breathing, exhausting, adorable reminder of our grief, and we survived; I’d say we even had fun. But grief is a sneaky fellow.

I had gotten used to seeing bibs, bottles and hooded towels that look like dragons. I fell into the habit of scanning the floor for choking hazards and a crawling baby boy in matching pajamas. And now they were all gone again, and the house was quiet. 

It was a familiar feeling. After Aiden died, the older kids returned to school, and Nick returned to work; it was just me and the house. I wandered from room to room, looking for what I knew I wouldn’t find. 

Decades before I was born, my mother’s brother died in a tragic accident when he was 4 years old. I remember one sepia-toned picture of him on my grandmother’s dresser. No one ever talked about him, and I got the impression I shouldn’t ask.

My grandparents came of age during the Depression. They’re part of the Greatest Generation, but are also from a time when many people pushed grief into a dark corner and rarely spoke of it.

I, on the other hand, had the instinct to keep my grief front and center. I placed bits and pieces of Aiden everywhere so I only had to turn my head a little to be reminded of him. There were pictures all over the house, a pair of socks in the trunk of my car, and the poster my friend made for his funeral leaning against a wall in the living room. 

It was mid-November when Aiden died. The start of the holiday season also marks the start of the mourning season, a time for gathering around a table that will always have one highchair empty, one fewer letter to Santa, one more turn of the New Year without our son.