It has been months since my dad died.

I don’t know that one ever gets used to living in a world without parents. Granted, this, like all things, is relative, as some have parents their entire lives and others never do, but I did and now I don’t.

Turns out, there’s always room for more emptiness.

The concept of the sandwich generation—adults caring for their children while also providing increasingly more care for their own parents—is common enough. Most of us experience some version of it, a life of garnish stacked thick along our respective journeys from one slice to the other. These are the roles we have all been given: we are all the heel, and we are all the hero. Bread puns are optional, but appreciated.

Everything is appreciated.

It is July 31, 2025, and I miss my dad. I miss his love and pride for my boys, and the way he laughed at their antics. I miss his thoughts on the world, religion and politics, even though I rarely agreed with any of them. I miss his constant need for coffee and his want for kindness. I miss missing him, with so many miles between us. But today, mostly, I miss calling to wish him a happy birthday.

We would have sang to him, and it would have sounded awful.

He would have loved it.

My dad, Marana Mayor Ed Honea, passed on November 22, 2024. His service was held on December 21, 2024—a day on which he was honored by Governor Hobbs ordering all flags flown at half-staff—and I was one of the speakers. It was a marvelous event, and our family is forever grateful to the town of Marana for all that they did. After the ceremony, I was asked to make my words available online, which is why I’m here on this website again, some 5+ years after I rode into the proverbial digital sunset. The eulogy for my father is included below, as well as his obituary. There will be more words to come.

A Eulogy

On behalf of the family, I would like to thank the Town of Marana and the community of Marana, for providing this beautiful space, doing the endless work to create this overwhelming celebration of, and for, my father, and for the kind words so many of you have shared in that regard.

Over the years, I haven’t had a lot of opportunity to come back to Marana, but thankfully, in October of this year I was able to take off work and spend some time with my dad, driving through new neighborhoods were nostalgia used to be, learning about growth, improvements and visions for tomorrow: walking paths to everywhere. I attended town functions and the grand opening of a supermarket 17 years in the making. Everywhere we went in the greater Marana area, everyone knew my dad, which, due to his position, wasn’t that surprising, but what really impressed me was that he knew them, too. I mean, he really knew them. He had two stories for every person he introduced me to—both of them nice—his mind a Rolodex of familial lore and business lunches.

In turn, the people I met, without fail, shared their personal thoughts on my father—most of them hardly cursing at all—to the person they were warm, sincere and deeply moving. They had nothing to gain from taking me aside and opening up like that, and they certainly didn’t owe it to me, but they went out of their way to do so because it, he, meant that much to them. There were stories of faith, community, friendship and respect, never a political word betwixt, just generous tales of sincere kindness.

I must admit, it was eye-opening, for as long as he had been a staple of service to the town of Marana, he had been “just dad” all the longer. Obviously, I knew him to be a good man, damn good, but my lens offered a slightly different perspective.

My earliest memories are of sitting on a shrinking lap, a slice of jean-covered thigh quickly losing ground between the random growth spurts of a lanky boy and the constant expansion of an ex-smoker’s belly. I sat there for years sharing tickles, snacks, and forgotten conversations, my sister sitting opposite, bouncing giggles off of red-brick walls, shedding freckles into the ether. There was a montage of facial hair, and I was captivated by its splendor or the sudden lack of it. Everything was long legs and gangly tussles, and I nestled happily in the swell of my father’s content.

The years stretched and the stories we planted sprouted stories of their own—each blooming with milestones, lessons, and the fragrant sweetness of life in hindsight, fond memories wafting down a timeline, always spinning toward what will be beneath the stretching shadows of what has been, the world a blur and somewhat dizzy.

We spent days together that grew into weeks, rolled into months, and segued into years as smooth as you like. I was hanging one arm out the window of a blue and bruised Datsun pickup, home in the welcome give of a worn bench seat, my father popping pistachios in time to an AM radio already out of date. I was bronze and blond, buck-toothed and skinny, my sister in the middle, squeezed to the point of laughter. My father was a smile in sunglasses, a song on his breath, and he was younger than I ever knew. Together we were glorious, a slideshow rolling toward that sinking horizon we spend our whole lives chasing.

Of course, the journey also took us through fields of frustration—fortunately those are all housing developments now—and there were sidetracks and shortcuts, disappointment and heartache, but all days ended in sunsets and every morning the sun would rise. There were birds in the distance and a whistle brought them nearer.

He raised pigeons. And ducks. And geese. And chickens, rabbits, horses, sheep, cows, goats who—and this is true, could eat a whole NERF football faster than I could get into the pen—dogs, cats, hamsters, a ferret and a monkey. And fish, so many that he was deemed Grandpa Fishy by his grandsons.

He delivered mail for decades, a 100-mile route in the Arizona sun. He served his country. He fell in love. He set examples and expectations. He led with kindness and invited you to meet him there. He lived a life worth living.

He cared for his parents, always, but in ways above and beyond through their waning hours. He never left the side of his wife, Jan, as she fought against the cancer that took her far too early.

Generally speaking, there is a clear line between being a character and having character, yet my dad managed both. He was a character with character, a man with simple tastes, folksy, earnest, good-humored, empathetic and honest, but he was also focused, driven, passionate and stubborn. He contained multitudes.

He was proud, but far from boastful, and that pride was centered on two things, the town of Marana and his grandsons. If you ever stepped foot in his home you found yourself in grandkid central, a well-organized museum to their wonder with him the curator, the president of a fan club for three boys who can’t even keep their own rooms clean.

I asked them if they had anything they’d like me share here on their behalf:

Atticus told me, “I always liked how he would take interest in the things I was interested in, like video games and game design, even when he really didn’t understand what I was talking about. He would stand behind me and watch, asking questions and then tying them into other things I was involved in, like my schoolwork or plans for the future.”

Zane added, “It was obvious when you were with him how much he really loved you. He loved his family more than anything. I always felt loved and he showed it—all he ever wanted for Christmas were pictures of us us, the grandkids—just look at his house—or to spend time together as a family.”

Greyson remembers his last trip to Marana, he walked with Grandpa Fishy to the park in Gladden Farms. They didn’t time it right and ended up walking home in the dark. They took a shortcut through the fields behind my dad’s house so they wouldn’t be in traffic. He asked Greyson to be his eyes, which made Grey uncomfortable because it was dark. The path was unknown. It was, admittedly, scary, and it didn’t help that his grandfather filled the time with tales and warnings about the dangers of wild javelina. So yes, Greyson did serve as his grandpa’s eyes, but he did it while clinging to him the entire way back to the house. The javelina, it turns out, wanted nothing to do with them.

My sister’s favorite story is one that she would never let my dad forget, so it’s fitting that she’d bring it up here, just in case he’s listening. Tiffany said, “I remember when he forgot my birthday a million years ago. I wouldn’t let you [me] remind him because I wanted to see how long it would take him to figure it out. After two weeks he realized it and bought me a really nice bike, purely out of guilt. We joked about it every year after. I also got spoiled every year after [I can certainly attest to that]. That was over 20 years ago.” Well over 20 years.

The thing is, each of us are the stories being written and we are all living in someone’s memories. We are the extras, the heroes and sometimes the villains of one another. We are scribbles in the margins and footnotes fondly fading. The shadows we cast grow longer as the days grow shorter. We wax. We wane. We give love. We take love. We pull hugs from handshakes, and the emotions on our sleeves often grow heavy and hard to carry. Life has a way of twisting and testing, and it wrings out the innocence with the sweat and the tears, leaving us in the shade of all that we have built, awkward with gratitude and loving one another. We are connected, intertwined, in ways blatant and all too subtle, but together we are better, and together good things get done.

My dad considered himself blessed to have the relationships that he did, and he wasn’t wrong, but I think there are several of us here who would argue that we are the lucky ones. Our stories crossed—some of us from the opening line, some for a paragraph here or a chapter there, some for but this briefest of moments which we are all sharing now—and the pages keep turning, all the better for having known one another.

If you take but one thing from this ceremony today, please make it this: enjoy your story, be the best you that you can be, and love the people in your life, loudly. Do right by one other.

My dad’s life may be over, but his story is still here, and we are all part of it, always. Embrace the memories of the man you knew, the legacy he has left, and share it with those you meet along the way. After all, there are endless ways to spread kindness in a world that sorely needs it, but talking about my dad is a really easy one. His is a story worth telling.

I am honored that you have allowed me to do my part.

Thank you.

Please note, a portion of the eulogy first appeared in a previous piece dedicated to my father, which he absolutely loved. It seemed fitting to rework it again in his honor.

Memorial program photos courtesy of Town of Marana.

An Obituary

Mr. Eddie R. Honea, age 77, of Marana, who preferred to be called Ed, but would also answer to Dad, Grandpa Honea, Grandpa Fishy, Homer and Mayor, passed away unexpectedly on Friday morning, November 22, 2024, at his residence from a sudden cardiac event.

There were three things that Ed cared about above all else: faith, his family and the Town of Marana.

Ed is survived by his son Whitney (Patricia) Honea, daughter Tiffany (Wynter) Phoenix, beloved grandchildren Atticus, Zane and Greyson, his brother Wayne (Cathy) Honea and sister Pam Bramlett, in addition to countless other relatives who will miss him terribly.

Ed was preceded in death by his parents Wynema and Ray Honea, his wife Janice Lawson and former wife Barbara Coatsworth.

His public service to the Town of Marana spanned nearly 40 years, most of which were spent as mayor, but also included terms on the town council.

Before retiring in 2007, he worked for 29 years as a contractor for the U.S. Postal Service in Marana.

He graduated from Marana High School in 1965, attended the U.S. Naval School of Construction and Pima Community College. During the Vietnam War, he served as a member of the U.S. Navy Seabees, and was a lifetime member of VFW Post 5990 in Marana.

He was a member of both Light the Way Lutheran Church and the Community Christian Church of Marana.

Ed was an incredibly caring and kind man, honest and principled, with a warm, gracious demeanor and whimsical sense of humor. He was always in a room of friends, even when opinions differed. If you met him, he wanted to know everything about you—which he would always remember—and in turn, you would learn everything about his grandkids.

Ed Honea was well-loved, and he loved well in return. You really can’t ask for more than that.

The Marana Food Bank & Community Resource Center was near and dear to Ed’s heart. If you are able, in lieu of flowers, please consider a donation in his honor.

Checks made out to the “Marana Food Bank & Community Resource Center” can be sent to:

PO Box 548
Marana, Arizona 85653

Online donations are also accepted at https://www.mfb-crc.org/make-a-donation.

There was a bird in the garden, reckless in its focus, kicking with both feet like a jackhammer upon drought-dried earth, turning turf for the treats that it hid and devouring them in rapid pecks before tilling again and the twigs sent flying. I sat with a book in my hand framing the world so that it appeared the bird bounced atop a page, digging for meaning beneath the words that I read. It felt an empty escape into a timeless moment with nothing to do but be warm and barefoot, light with drink and content upon the back porch as the bird kicked again at one phrase and feasted quickly on another, for what is a story if not the give of plot and soil?

It dawned on me then, when my family was safe and engaged in their own pursuits, and the land was leaping forward despite terrible actions spurred by cries of ignorance and hate, that something had found me there in a place I had long stopped looking—on a random date on a meandering timeline, and perhaps the final notch at that—I had said my piece and then some, too: I was happy.

That isn’t to say I have not felt happiness in bit and bouts. I have seen it here and there, picked it up and carried it for a while, even worn it like a mask and more often armor, but then, when no one was paying me mind and conversations had turned from my own defense I would put it down again, just as I had found it. Then I would watch it run away, free toward places I need forgotten, and let myself deflate like a balloon untied from a string freshly broken.

This was not that. This was not a feeling but rather a being, it was happiness loose and unfettered, an old companion that had long promised to call again suddenly showing up unannounced to remind me of its missing. We sat together, lost in the comfort of one another, until our eyes grew heavy with time and tonic. To any that glanced my way they would see nothing save a bird on a page, a curious smile and a sky now bright burning itself upon the fumes of fading melancholy—the kind of sunset made for the riding off into, and so we did.

There was laughter in the distance, and it rolled nearer upon the tiny feet of tender thunder. I stood and I turned to greet it.

The conversation started over breakfast, a thread to a tangent passed with pepper and more coffee. It stuck like syrup in a mustache.

Eventually, it moved from a stranger-coveted table in an increasingly busy restaurant to another prolonged standstill in the parking lot. Two family members danced a tango of societal and political opinion while everyone else kicked leaves and waited for car doors to open.

Then it continued in the front seat for another 20 minutes. I sat in the back with a 5-year-old on my right. His toy made a loud, electronic shriek, apparently forever, and it was always within an inch of my face. Frankly, I was happy to have it, never pushing it away for the entire ride. It kept the conversation at bay.

Perhaps it seems odd that I wasn’t involved in the debate. After all, my thoughts on politics and society are published everywhere (including this site), often. I’m not known for staying quiet.

I was, figuratively, biting my tongue.

This past Christmas I had lost my cool—justifiably so, but it was still rather embarrassing—in a similar conversation. I had yelled, cursed, turned shades of the season and frothed with spittle. It was an outburst that had been building for over a year. Disgust, fear, anger and tension—I suddenly unleashed it in the face of someone who didn’t deserve it, at least not in the form I presented it. I vowed I would not repeat myself, despite everything being 12 months worse than anyone could ever want to imagine.

So I sat in the backseat, letting a child pierce my ears with laser screams. His face was full of soundless laughter.

Every so often I would catch a word or two from the front. The argument seemed to center on whether most people in the world (but, specifically, in the United States) are good. One swore that was the case. One was not convinced. They both had their reasons.

For context, the participants in this particular conversation fell on different sides of several aisles, including (but not limited to) politics, age, religion, education, race and tax bracket. In most cases, I tended to agree with one of them more than the other. It’s not a secret.

My 12-year-old son summed it up best as we all loitered in the parking lot: “I don’t know what they’re arguing about, but I know who is right.”

He wasn’t wrong.

Yet, the current conversation, the matter of innate goodness, was something of an outlier.

One argued that most people are good, something I want to believe (and often do, based upon the majority of those I have met). The point, however, was tinted in shades of rose, the hue of making great again that which was only a matter of privilege and perspective.

The case against was full of headlines and the burning world around us. I only needed to look out the window, the ground black and smoldering in the aftermath of recent, literal fires, to find agreement there.

And I did, beyond the face of a laughing boy, and deep into the valley of burnt homes, the bones of buildings and the ghosts already haunting them, stretched every stitch of answer.

Most people are good. At least, they believe themselves to be.

But what does “good” even mean?

What is considered good by one person may not qualify for another. One act, intended and believed as wholehearted goodness, may be perceived as wrong, hurtful or offensive by others. Good, like most things, is relative.

For my part, I try to teach my kids to spread kindness, social awareness, empathy and action, all of which I believe to be at the core of good. Yet, I am constantly mocked and threatened for it. I am quite sure those people casting judgment upon me don’t believe themselves wrong. Far from it. They think of themselves as the good guys.

We got to the beach, as we always do, the ground of ash finally giving way to swaths of sand, mere feet from the ocean’s edge. The toy’s digital echo buried beneath a cry of seagulls and the pop of waves breaking into cold, wet blankets.

My boys appeared from the other half of our caravan, barefoot and pants rolled high.

“We’re going to go walk in the water,” they said.

“Good,” I replied.

They knew exactly what I meant.

_{Photo by Whit Honea}

“Tuesday,” I repeated, my voice rising quickly on the last syllable, a vocal jump toward the edge of inquiry. “Did you say Tuesday?” I asked, now fully committed to the line of questioning.

“Sure,” he said. “I’ll pick you at 7.”

I put it on my calendar. I checked again to make sure the day was right. Then I started wondering what Wednesday would be like. Would I find the strength to carry on?

Honestly, I don’t know why the idea of grabbing a beer with a friend on a Tuesday night registered the way it did. I’ve done social things on plenty of Tuesdays. And there’s a fairly good chance I’ve had a beer or two on any given weeknight over the past 20 years—granted less so as time moves on—but it’s hardly a shock. Tuesday is just another day, not quite the hump and 24 hours better than Monday.

But, whereas a lifetime ago I would have seized the alliteration of Two-for-Tuesday specials like I was investing in pork bellies (I wasn’t a vegetarian then), I am now content dedicating the day to tacos and television.

Perhaps it is because school is back in session, and with it all the early morning responsibilities that summer had delayed by an hour or two. I have to get up early. I’m working at least 12 hours per day. My wife is working long hours an hour away. There is homework. There are chores. By the time we eat dinner it’s pushing 8 p.m., then dessert if we’re lucky. Then, I decide if I’m going to continue working until well after midnight or try to go to bed and wake up before the sun. I usually do both, staying up too late and waking up too early. There are deadlines, meetings and all the trappings of lower middle-class success.

I guess I was too tired to go out on a Tuesday, or rather, the idea of it made me too tired. There would be walking to the barstool, and then sitting on it, and looking at a menu of fried foods and microwaved munchies. And the bar in question insists on serving everything in an ice-covered chalice, so that’s a pain in the ass to lift. Oh, the whole thing is such an ordeal. Plus, I’d have to leave the kids alone for a couple of hours. And yet, I really wanted to see my friend.

Tuesday, man. Tuesday.

Then it arrived.

I woke up worried. There was a long list of things to be done, which, granted, were the same things that need to be done most days, but now — there was pressure! I was on the clock. Meetings. Deadlines. Dishes. Then I needed to make sure homework, chores and dinner were all completed an hour earlier than usual. I took a shower in the middle of the afternoon.

I was going out for a beer at 7 p.m. on a Tuesday.

About 6 o’clock the phone rang.

“Hey, man. I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m beat. Any chance we can do this a different day?”

“How’s next Wednesday?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said. “I’ll pick you at 7.”

I put it on my calendar.

_{Photo: Lance Anderson | Unsplash}

I met a friend for coffee the other day. It’s something we try to do on a regular basis, which, apparently, means once every eight months.

Our schedules have proven difficult to align, despite our living two miles apart, having kids at the same school, and working in similar creative fields. It takes half a year and two dozen texts to create 90 minutes of quality time at Starbucks, 15 of which are spent standing in line. This is the sum of our parts, a modern life defined by new math and the old habits we cannot help but cling to.

This is a pattern in my life when it comes to friendships, and I’m not sure how I got here. That is, I have great friends around the globe and corner, but I don’t spend nearly enough time with any of them. Granted, my own anxiety and the comforts of home tend to keep me in more than my younger self could ever have imagined, but I’m still social, awkwardly so, and often want for company.

Work is at least 60 hours per week, filled with meetings and deadlines, edits and interviews. My wife works even more, with her schedule scattered across both sides of the wee hours, the coming and the going. The boys have extracurricular activities, and when they don’t there is homework, friends and binging The Office again. Also, the daily reality that they no longer want to spend quality time with me, despite a good decade begging for my attention.

Everyone I know has something similar. We are all trying to juggle the commitments of work, family obligations and the things we want to do, plus assorted health concerns, financial considerations and the respective battles that each of us is fighting. All things considered, meeting for coffee once every eight months seems fairly reasonable.

So how is it, with a life busy between work, family, volunteering and six streaming services, do I still find myself with regular bouts of downtime? I do enjoy time by myself, but even I can have enough of me. I could fill that time by lifting some weights or picking up the phone, but I despise both of those things, regardless of the benefits they may carry.

What I want is an unexpected knock at the door and a smile through the peephole, a random text to grab a beer on a Tuesday or my kids to help in the kitchen because they enjoy the company.

In jukebox terms, I’ve spent 16 years whistling Cat’s in the Cradle, only to have Piano Man sneak up behind me.

The fact is, I’m often lonely, and I know I’m not alone. Plenty has been written about the importance of continued camaraderie and adult friendships as we age, and while I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have the relationships I do, I can’t help but wonder if we’d all be better served by putting a larger focus on them.

Perhaps that requires a bit more flexibility or accepting that there is a difference between inviting and imposing. Maybe instead of waiting for a moment, I just need to make one.

After all, it’s hard to expand your comfort zone if you never attempt to leave it.

We should grab a coffee sometime.

_{Photo: Whit Honea}

“I am Groot,” is what I should have said, but that’s his line. Instead, I said it in my native tongue. And this time with feeling.

“You’re being a jerk.”

And he was.

Still, calling my son names in a fit of anger hadn’t been on my Sunday morning itinerary. Rather, I had planned for it to open like every Sunday does: Nina Simone playing over cups of coffee, me in an apron, and something on the griddle dangerously close to burning.

Plan B, apparently, was standing in the doorway of my sons’ shared bedroom, repeating myself in competition with electronics that they weren’t supposed to be on, and getting syllables laced in sass thrown back in my general direction.

“You’re being a jerk” was an unplanned reaction, a reflex of frustration aimed at my oldest. It hit us both sharply in the chest, just slightly left of middle.

If you have seen Avengers: Infinity War, then you are familiar with teen Groot. He is the angst-filled tree creature who appears to have an electronic device (Defender!) growing out of his hand (branch?) like the beeping bud of a digital spring. And if you haven’t seen Avengers: Infinity War, then I don’t even know who you are anymore.

Anyway, Groot spends much of his time playing on his device, despite being told not to, and bouncing shade and sass off every forehead that faces him. The similarities between Groot’s behavior and that of my eldest son were not lost on anyone in our family, even—and perhaps to his credit—him. And still, as soon as his phone is ordered back in his pocket it is out again, seemingly involuntary, all apps set to attitude.

The thing about Groot is that everything he says, assuming he can bother to look up from his game, sounds like “I am Groot” to those who don’t speak his language (apparently some school districts offer it as an elective, just not on Earth). We, the audience (consisting mainly of Earthlings), have to rely on the reactions of other characters in the film to know what was said. Turns out, tone and translation are universal tools.

The only real difference between my teenage son and teenage Groot is that my kid wears pants, at least when he leaves the house. The similarities, however, are many. For instance, they are each pubescent saplings, armed in body spray and eye rolls.

Fortunately, like seasons to foliage, it is only a phase. Just as Groot finds the right moments to set down his device and rise to the occasion, so too does my son surprise me with random acts of kindness and responsibility, his deep empathy and doing the right thing, unconnected.

It is a phase we must get through together. My fighting apathy with anger is not the solution.

Breakfast was served in smoke and silence, save Nina Simone softly singing.

“I am Groot,” I said in tones of honest sincerity, meaning every bit of it.

“I am sorry,” was all he heard.

Love died just before 7:45 on a Tuesday morning, at the exact same time the clock stopped ticking.

“I was crying in class,” said the youngest, an afternoon later. “I was crying and my teacher asked me why, so I told her. She said she was sorry.”

The oldest stayed in bed all day, weighed down beneath the steady stream of his own flowing tears, ignoring texts and whatever was on the TV.

Love, after all, had been his dog.

It had been his fourth birthday, and the two of us had gone to the shelter to find the only gift he wanted, and in doing so, to give one of his own.

The puppy was all licks and wiggles. He was all laughter and plans for their future. For the entire ride home they basked in mutual happiness, and then 11 more years of the same.

What do you want to name the puppy?” I had asked him, our eyes meeting in the rearview mirror.

“Dog Food,” he had replied.

“We’re not naming the dog Dog Food.”

“How about Kitty Cat?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“How about Kitty Cat Food?” he continued.

“She may not like that,” I said. “Give her a name she can grow into.”

And so he thought for the while, down one street and up another, as the puppy moved in as close to him as only a puppy can, curled up and fell asleep, her nose upon his lap.

“I’m going to call her Love,” he said. And he did.

She grew into every inch of it.

On Tuesday morning Love came in the door like any day, fresh from a long night sleeping against a boy’s legs and a few moments of stretching her own. She had already eaten, played outside, been pet by everyone in the kitchen, and was ready for her regular nap. It was as routine as a sunrise.

Then she walked into the boys’ room, and she died.

The clock stopped.

The tears started.

The shock, I think, is something bound to linger, and our love forever longer.

Love was exactly what we called her, and love was all we ever knew.

The happiness was mutual.

There is a gift under the tree that will not be opened. It was there last Christmas and the year before, wrapped in pretty Pixar paper and red ribbon that is sure to fade, as all things do. It will be there next year, too, and for as many Christmases as we have trees to post above it.

Perhaps someday this gift will move away from home, along with my boys, a token of tradition under their own trees. Or there may come a time that it never makes it from the garage at all, left in a box full of memories more distant with each generation, until it is just another thing coated in dust and layers long forgotten.

You never really know what the future may hold.

We know what is in the package. The boys know, too, although the youngest had to ask his brother for a clue this year—the response coming out between a chin falling to his chest and eyes suddenly sullen, dark and lowered. To be fair, it is hard to remember the ghosts of Christmas past when you are only 9 and prone to visions of sugarplums and winter wonder, which is exactly as it should be.

I refused to let death take the holidays from me, too.

The present is addressed to Nana, my mother, who never had the chance to open it. She died suddenly, a car accident on her way to our house two years ago, while I was cleaning the guest room and the boys were sitting by the front door, anxious for her arrival and the joy she brought with her. I let them sit there for hours, passing the time in plans and play, while I paced in the yard and cried into phone calls. I let them sit there as long as I could, holding Christmas with happiness untainted, their grandmother alive and laughing. Then I called them to my side, and I told them that she wasn’t coming.

The gift went unopened and somewhat avoided after that.

I never wanted to be one of those people you see in the movies, bitter toward holidays, curmudgeons of the season hiding behind their respective sadness and the scars that it caused them. However, there was a moment when I considered joining their ranks—assuming, incorrectly, that I had no choice in the matter. Then Christmas came around again, and I decided to stand my ground. I refused to let death take the holidays from me, too.

It helps to have children in the house.

This second annual tradition springs from tragedy.

The boys keep Christmas in their hearts, or at least our secular version of it, with endless innocence and a wealth of kindness. My mother had that, too, and the holiday was her favorite time of the year. It wouldn’t be fair to the kids or respectful of my mother’s memory to let the sadness of the season overshadow the good it has done—and the good it has still left to do.

My sister and I live in different states with mountains between us. This year, just as the last, her family will make the drive to visit ours, and we will celebrate Christmas together—not on the day that the calendar has suggested, but on December 23, the day of our mother’s passing. It is bittersweet, a tinseled twist of magic and melancholy, our children laughing and running everywhere but to Nana.

This second annual tradition springs from tragedy. It’s filled with tears, laughter and countless toasts of wine. It is our new Christmas Present, loving the past with an eye to the future, and a gift under the tree that no one will open.

This piece was first published on Mom.me in 2015

“What would you like for Christmas?”

It was a simple question, sitting in a text message, timestamped and marked as read.

I didn’t have a simple answer.

Peace on Earth would be nice, but I would settle for a government that cares for its people.

Cures to everything: disease, hunger and otherwise? That would be a Christmas miracle.

Financial security might help me sleep at night, but a job would do me wonders.

“Nothing,” I replied, because those are the things I would like forever.

I was in middle school when my mother’s parents died, both in the same year. I came home one day, bus-scented and gangly with cowlicks in my hair, to find my mom mascara-smudged in the kitchen. Then four months later we did it again, but with the added benefit of practice.

My parents divorced a couple of years later.

Still, the holidays persisted.

Even as an adult, as life continues to twist our stories, dropping obstacles like so many pine needles, we move forward, one calendar page at a time, each blurring with the next until we go full circle, another December and the motions that we go through.

We have always found ways to make the holidays matter, despite years of grief from losing far too many, or perhaps because of it.

And yet, if there was a Venn diagram of Christmas ghosts, this year would be the overlap. We all have our own tales of life gone past, and our thoughts about the future, but the present? Now is not a gift to anyone. Who among us hasn’t wondered the point of wrapping paper under a fake tree when we live in a world where presidents befriend child molesters, war is on the brink and every third man is a monster?

This is Christmas Present in the Upside Down, and all the lights are flashing.

But it’s not too late. We can’t, despite a lack of solace in the solstice, turn our backs on hope, especially during the holidays. In fact, this may be the year we need the holiday season most of all.

Hope is a spark and a flicker, a beacon of warmth against the long, cold night. It may seem in short supply this year, but all we have to do is look to our children to help us find it. Kids shine with hope, brightly, in dreams of Santa and the laughter of friendship. They wear it like a smile and spread it like petals and sunshine. Relatively speaking, they have more past to look forward to, and they use their hope to light the way. They are our candles in the window and bonfires in the distance. Their hope is a thing to be nurtured and cherished, but also inspiration and a constant reminder of it.

It is Christmas Present, here and now, and it will be again. Along the way our stories will twist and we’ll face the things we wish for and some we wish we wouldn’t. There will be loss and obstacles, questions, joy and darkness. Things will end while others are just beginning. Everything will change, repeatedly. Carry hope, heedless of the season, and it will be the gift that we are giving.

The text chimed with the reply, like a bell sending tidings from the season.

“Okay,” was sent in a bright, blue bubble. Then there were three little dots beneath it.

“Then tell me what you need,” it said, and from there the bells kept ringing.

_{Photo: Denise Johnson | Unsplash}