12/25/2025
Last year I genuinely thought it would be Remy’s 4th and last Christmas.
Diagnosed earlier that month with a 1 in a literal 1,000,000 rare and aggressive cancer in her face… everything felt completely hopeless. We were trapped in a pit of despair (that for her sake) we still had to package with Christmas wrapping. Every day since 12/3/2024, we’d switch off to cry in different rooms so she wouldn’t see us falling apart. I’d save my tears for when I’d be nursing 2 month old Otis while grieving a life that was now gone forever.
Her hair started falling out in clumps on Christmas Eve and we scrambled to sn**ch them away before she could see the piles on her pillow or floating off her shoulders trailing around the house. We told her that she’d lose her hair the day after Christmas so at least that wouldn’t be the Christmas memory. Who knows if it worked but we tried.
To be able to look back on the holidays of last year as something in the past, to see her still here now, hair growing back looking little like baby Eleven… it feels like a miracle. But I don’t thank God, I thank science. (PLEASE support cancer research and vote for the politicians who do too). I thank our friends and family who showed up for us time and time again. I thank our healthcare team, who were once strangers but now are part of us forever. We wouldn’t be here without them.
I think of the innocent little ones who aren’t here this year. Children persecuted, children starved. Children who won their battle with cancer only through death. Little girls who went to camp and never came home. Children killed because some Americans would rather have “freedom” than a child alive. Any innocent child needlessly suffering is a crime and we as a society can do so much better.
Life is a gift. Our kids are a gift. Truly cherish the ones you love and Happy Holidays. ❤️
