here it comes.

more "firsts." our first thanksgiving without mummy. our first thanksgiving with missy.

followed by our first christmas without mummy. and our first christmas with missy.

thank god for missy. and seamus. and liam. they help us to balance looking forward with looking back.

last thanksgiving was at aunt jane's. it was supposed to be at our house...but mummy was dying. at that point she was still getting out of the house, but she decided to pass on thanksgiving since she didn't want to be wheeled around and cause anyone any trouble. she was no trouble...but we couldn't convince her of that.

i honestly can't remember what i did on thanksgiving. i can't remember if i went to aunt jane's for a little while or if i just stayed home. i think i went to aunt jane's...but whatever i did, i was so preoccupied that i wasn't in the moment...and as a result i have no memory of the day.

i just have memories of mummy. in the sunroom. with one of her many tea-carts by her side. in a hospital bed with flannel cowboy sheets. getting up in the mornings and making an effort to get to the kitchen sink. brushing her teeth and giving herself a little spongebath before she got back in bed and asked for a hairbrush.

i remember trying to get her to eat.

and with the memories of medication and radiation and the scheduling of her chemotherapy are the memories of her laughing and the times she sat and smiled while she spent time with her friends and with aunt jane & uncle john. i also have clear memories of the times that aunt mary-anne came to sit with her and we all deliberately disappeared, closing the french doors so she could have alone time with her sister/best friend so she could feel free to express all of her hopes and fears without children within earshot.

i have never had a christmas without mummy. i have never woken up on christmas morning without being under the same roof as mummy. i tried once. one year i decided to skip christmas in d.c. and have a christmas holiday to myself in san francisco. i told her of my plan that thanksgiving. so instead of magee flying to d.c. without me, mummy and maura flew out here.

we had the best time.

this is going to be weird. we all know we want to be together. we're not really sure we want to be home - at mummy's house in the place where she died. we do know that we need to be in d.c. because seamus and liam won't be able to travel. so we'll be there. motherless on christmas for the very first time.

with the exception of last year, mummy did the santa thing. a few years ago, we were finally able to convince her to tone it down a little bit. instead of a pile of gifts for each of us, for the past few years just stuffed a stocking and (if we told her there was something we wanted) added an extra gift or two. the stockings always had a clementine in the toe, some candy (like mini reese's peanut butter cups), some little gifts and a sterling silver christmas tree ornament. (every year, gogo had given each of her grandchildren a sterling silver ornament and mummy continued the tradition with us after gogo died.)

last year, she was dying. i don't even remember if i said "merry christmas" to anyone that day. that night, when i lay down on the floor with magee next to the hospital bed, i remember praying for her to die. and before the sun came up, she did.

sometime, later that day, i remember telling magee or maura that i didn't think i had even said "merry christmas" and that we had not even celebrated it in any way. and i don't remember if it was magee or maura, but i remember someone handed me a little red box with a sterling silver christmas ornament.

our sweet sick mummy had wireless and a credit card.