It was a Christmas of firsts.
My grandson’s first Christmas!
My daughter’s first Christmas away from home. She was spending it out of state with her husband’s family. I was very sad about that.
And, it was the first Christmas with my youngest son in rehab.
When he came home Christmas morning, he sat at the dining room table and dumped out a Christmas stocking containing small games and candy. I asked him where he got it and a glimmer of the son that I know and love, shined through his angry exterior as he answered, “Santa came to rehab.”
I laughed. It was so good to hear just a bit of his fun sense of humor, even if it was laced in sarcasm.
It was the best Christmas morning for my grandson. He was in awe of the display in front of him when he woke up. There were so many unwrapped gifts from Santa and a mountain of wrapped gifts from his mom and dad. He did not know what to think or what to touch first. Being totally enthralled with watching him shift his attention from present to present, sometimes faster than he was ready for, was healing for my soul. He is such a fun, happy, and wonderful little boy.
I honestly don’t know what I would have done without my grandson in my life this past year. He has brought so much happiness and has been such a joy to me as I spend time with him every week.
I just loved having my grandson (and his parents!) in our home for his first Christmas.
Luckily, there were no big conflicts or problems during the entire day. Earlier, my oldest son asked my younger son to do him a favor and help make the baby’s first Christmas a really great one. He agreed to try and I think it helped.
Now when it came to the gifts that he received himself--he wasn’t that excited. He didn’t ask for anything other than “something to do” in rehab. So, we got him an acoustic guitar. He has electric guitars at home, but we thought that an acoustic would be better to play in rehab, since they wouldn’t let him have his amplifier there. He took it out of the bag, strummed it a few times, and put it back in the bag where it stayed for the rest of the day. Oh well, we tried.
The two things that made him the happiest were the yo-yo that my parents gave to him and taking advantage of my older son’s gift—a Black Op’s X-box Game. He spent a lot of time trying to perfect some yo-yo tricks and as much time as he could playing the X-box.
When it was time for him to go back to the facility that night, I cried again. It wasn’t a perfect day, but it was as good as it could get. I loved having him here and I missed him so much.
I couldn’t wait for New Year’s when he would be able to come home again. Even though he only had about 2 hours to spend with us on New Year’s Eve, we had a good time eating pizza and playing X-Box Kinect games at my oldest son’s house. My daughter and her husband were back from their trip and were going to spend the night with us. It was so good to have them back. It was a really fun night!
The next day, we went sledding at a hill near our home. It was freezing cold, with temperatures below zero, but it was sunny and seemed like a good day for sledding. One of my favorite parts was when my son took my camera from me, gave it to my husband, and dragged me up the hill so that I could sled down it with him. He said that he wanted some mother/son bonding time. It felt so good to see him smile, laugh, and enjoy himself.
I will probably never forget that day of sledding.
I will grab onto every little triumph over the depression, anger, and drugs that are trying to take my son away from me.
It felt like a good step forward that we really needed.
It made me feel optimistic about how things were going to go in the future.
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