Making homemade stockings and cutting flowers for wreaths.

Baking treats and devouring them with hot cocoa by the tree that we spent hours decorating.

Shopping for just the right gifts and wrapping them meticulously, so those I love know just how special they are.

I remember all the traditions that we did together as a family before my symptoms hit hard.

Now, I am reduced to shopping the internet for gifts, but still, I do the best I can to find something special.

I usually start out trying to help decorate, just to end up on the couch watching everyone do what I can no longer do.

I sit here and watch despite the pain I feel from the few decorations I put on the tree because I so want to stay a part of things as much as I can, while I can, even if it’s nothing more than a shadow of what I once was.

Do they know how much I still long to be a part of it all? How much I long to be a part of them?

I sit here and as I ponder how much things have changed and all that I am now, I find myself stuck in my head.

Do they see how stuck I am?

Do they see how afraid I am, that each holiday might be the last that I have with them, and they have with me?

I’ve got to get out of my head and be present.

The best present that I can give them really is just me, fully engaged in showing them that they’re the best that has ever happened to me!