Christmas in Heaven

I had another one of those sad/proud moments with Amanda last night while we decorated the Christmas tree and listened to satellite Christmas music on our TV. I truly don’t know what my life would be like if she (and Luke) weren’t a part of it right now.

After putting Luke to bed, Amanda and I strung up the lights and started putting up some of the ornaments. The first container of ornaments had the ones that Cindy and I painted our first Christmas together. Commence crying. The second group of ornaments that I found included one that I had bought Cindy early in our relationship. More crying. I tried to keep Amanda from seeing my tears - she’s seen enough of them lately - but it was to no avail. She looked at me and said, "Why are you crying, daddy? Don’t cry. Mommy’s happy and she’s watching us have fun putting up this tree." What a girl!!!

At the moment Amanda said that to me, I turned to the TV to listen to a new Christmas song. Its title was "Christmas in Heaven" and I had never heard it before. Now, I normally HATE(!) with a passion those first person songs that tell some kind of sappy story. (Butterfly Kisses, Christmas Shoe song, Grandma Got Ran Over by a Reindeer, etc.) They are about as high on my despise list as forwarded emails telling me to forward the received email to 5 of my "friends" within the next 30 minutes and I will get good luck for 24 hours. This song, however, was one that related to me - so I will give it a pass.

It is sung from the perspective of someone in heaven and spending their first Christmas with Jesus. As you can imagine, I stopped everything, held Amanda and cried. Amanda said to me, "you miss mom, don’t you?" I had to say yes, but that I know she is having a great time now.

I don’t know what my life would be like if she weren’t a part of it right now.... nor what I would write in my blog.