My Christmas Wish

It was just my son and I home all day yesterday. My father in law is in ICU in the Halifax Infirmary so Mike and our daughter went over for the night to visit his parents while we stayed home to take care of our beloved pets and to keep the house running.

Anyone who has ever been in our home knows that I am a pampered princess. Mike is a very kind, caring and nurturing person. That is what makes him such a wonderful father and husband. We are blessed.

In Mike’s absence, our son has been so good to me. While I worked away at a project yesterday, he made me a hot chocolate and later offered me a coffee (all the things that Mike does while I am working, minus the food offerings). He took care of our pets and kept the stove going, among other things. He is so awesome! 

When Mike called last night I told him all about it. He said, “So he has been paying attention all these years.”  We are just so thrilled to have our son back and to be seeing his upbringing shining through. When he was in active addiction, we would see little glimpses of our son, which is why we never gave up. He was in there. We just had to find a way to get him out from the grips of addiction.

My son and I finished decorating the Christmas tree, and also shared some great laughs. When he was looking at all the flavours of tea on the David’s Tea website, he saw one called “Mom’s Apple Pie”. He said, “I don’t know how they can make it taste burnt with the oven on fire”.  That is one of our kids’ favourite memories. What a commotion in the house that day with the pie and oven on fire and the smoke alarm going off. They couldn’t wait for dad to get home to tell him the news about mom’s pie! Dad saved the day by going out to buy one. What a wonderful memory of a time before addiction entered our home!

This Christmas season and every day, we are filled with gratitude for the beautiful gift of having our son back. We look forward to Christmas Eve and morning when we will all be together celebrating with peace in our minds and in our hearts.  

My Christmas wish (besides my father in law’s return to good health, of course) is that we will end the suffering brought on by addiction. That we will begin to treat it as aggressively as we would any other disease so that other families will get their loved ones back too. That society will come to understand the disease and show compassion for those suffering its effects. That when history is written, the future generation will be shocked at how we treated sick people and feel grateful that “times have changed”.

From my family to yours, have a very blessed Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year.

With love,

Rose