An empty place at the table

Christmas.  A time of peace, joy, goodwill.  Of family, friends, sharing and gifts.  Of traditions, the comfort of excess and many blessings.

Christmas.  A time of increased suicide rates, loneliness, desolation, cold and pain.

Most people associate Christmas with the former feelings, few with the latter.  And for those of us with a missing child Christmas becomes a bizarre combination of them both.  We still have gifts left for our son in 2007.  Unopened, untouched.  We will go to church but there will be an empty space on the pew beside us.  We will sit down to dinner with an empty place at our table and one less cracker to pull.  We will open our gifts and enjoy giving them but inside will wish we had an extra one to give to the most special of people.  We will light a candle and wonder if it really can signify hope after so long.  We will hug one another and still ache inside because we cannot hug one more much loved person.  I don’t think we really know what to do with Christmas any more in our house.  Not since Andrew went missing.  Christmas is a bitter sweet limbo for us that reflects the pain and confusion of not knowing and at the same time brings hope of a miracle