Here, We’re Briefly Gorgeous

Thirty.

That’s the number of Christmases we’ve spent together.

Ours was an autumn courtship, so that first December was still tender and new. 

You teased me about my gift – implying you didn’t buy one. Back then, gifts were my love language.

When money got tight, we decided to take advantage of after-holiday sales and exchange on New Year’s Eve. All these years later, it’s a tradition we’ve kept.

What can I say that I haven’t already said?

I always know what you’re going to order for dinner.

You love Wordle, board games of any kind, the Buffalo Bills, and watching thunderstorms from the front porch.

Although a dentist by trade, you are a teacher at heart.

You’ve taught our five kids everything you could think of—how to fold a sheet, where to keep your money, the way inflation works. 

How to make pasta, pray in church, find Bolivia on a map, calculate the tip in a restaurant.

You are a Forever Father.

For nineteen years, he sat through doctor appointments and academic meetings and listened to all the things your complicated son won’t do, because autism got its sticky little fingers all over the place. 

You clenched your jaw, looked down at the paperwork, and cleared your throat.

Then you walked out the door and into the sunlight. You squinted against the glare, and you figured out a plan. 

Raising a vulnerable child is messy business. It doesn’t always bring out the best in us. It magnifies our flaws. It triggers our own insecurities.

Often, we argued. We disagreed. Many times, we went to bed angry—unable to see one another’s side. 

Over a year ago, we moved Jack into a college program.

We smoothed the blankets on the bed.

We unpacked the pancake griddle, the extra toothbrushes, the bath mat.

When it was time to go, we all trooped out to the parking lot. We said our quick goodbyes.

As our son turned and made his way back to the building, you openly wept.

The thing is, a mother’s grief is loud and colorful. It takes up space. It fills the room.

A father’s grief is often quiet—internal.

It’s easy to forget that you had hopes and dreams all your own when it comes to your son and our family and the future.

It’s easy to forget how, through the ages, men have been told they have to be brave and stoic and strong. They are not supposed to show emotion, or be vulnerable, or cry. 

Watching your complicated son walk away, you could have stood tall, kept your shoulders back, and held your head high.

Instead, you wept. 

You wept in front of fellow parents and incoming students. 

You wept in front of your wife and children.

You wept in front of strangers.

You stood tall.

You kept your shoulders back.

You held your head high.

And you wept.

You taught your children everything you could think to teach. 

Geography, money, politics, heritage, religion. 

Standing beneath the hot summer sky, you taught them how to cry.

Life is full of a million special moments, and a thousand small hurts, all mixed up with tender mercies.

Which is a stupid way of saying life with children is messy and ordinary and terrifying. 

We work hard to make sense of what is expected of us, and who we actually are. 

We live forward. 

We worry about what’s coming, what’s next, what we should do after the thing we just did.

We try to predict the outcome, the risks, the possible drawbacks to every decision.

It’s only when we look backwards that we begin to understand it at all.

Now, we sit on the couch at night. Me on one end, you on the other. The lights on the tree twinkle softly. 

Here, we’re briefly young again. We’re briefly gorgeous.

We are the culmination of our battle scars, our jagged voices, our stolen moments. 

Thirty years of Christmas. May there be many, many more.

Calamari. That’s what you always order for dinner.