I hope all of you who celebrate Christmas are having(or had–or will have depending on what part of the world you live in) a wonderful day!

It’s been a minute since I’ve posted and I promise I will update you all soon, but wanted to share this gift that Cael just gave me.

She’s been working on this picture of Jamey since Thanksgiving and I have to say it’s one of the best gifts I’ve ever received. She clearly has his artistic talent and I really think she captured his look and spirit in it.

The holidays are often an emotionally conflicting time for those who’ve lost a loved one.

Every broken ornament, every tangled ball of colored lights brings with it a memory, a moment in time frozen yet fleeting, like a frosted windowpane in a warming home.

This picture popped up in my Facebook memories today: it was from Christmas 2014–Jamey’s last Christmas:

A few weeks after this picture, we placed him on hospice; 4 months after this picture, he was gone. About a year later, my mom was no longer able to take care of herself and was eventually placed on hospice as well.

We knew none of that in this picture.

We were just celebrating Christmas as usual.

That picture captured a moment; that moment is long gone.

But those thousands, maybe millions of frozen memory moments are ours to hold onto for as long we can.

And when we can no longer recall those thousands of moments, all we have is this very moment.

By the time this picture was taken, neither Jamey nor my mom could recall the thousands of moments they’d collected over their lives.

So they lived in the moment.

It’s all they could really do anymore.

And although it seems sad and tragic(and it was and is), in a way, they instinctively knew what is true for us all; this moment is all we have.

So I hope your Christmases and holidays spent with family or friends or alone is filled with deliciously-decorated moments in time that you can hold onto for as long as you’re able.

–Kim and Cael