It’s come back. Last 2 years we sat on a beach and pretended it wasn’t happening. We ignored Christmas. Overlooked it. Avoided it. This year, we are home. We are here to face it in all it’s glory and brutality, helplessly watching the abundance of ‘missing’ it precipitates. For many years I volunteered to work on Christmas as I believed it meant more to my colleagues who belong to the Christian faith than it did to me. With whatever time we had together as a family we enjoyed the social aspect of X-mas.

When Saagar was eleven, I wrapped his gift in a hurry and left the roll of wrapping paper in the ‘miscellaneous’ cup-board. When he saw the gift from Santa, he gave me a quizzical look, like a cocker spaniel and said, “But…”. That was the end of it. Although we laughed about it, the Santa story was blown away in that instant. As an adult he thought it was unfair on kids to be ‘lied to’ by their parents. We took different standpoints on matters of wonder, mystery, magic and innocence.

After much internal resistance over the last week, I finally installed a postmodern Christmas tree of white and silver twigs with pink fairy lights right in front of Saagar’s picture. Milkshake loved it and immediately took shelter underneath it. He hasn’t budged in 3 days except for short food and loo breaks. Last evening 3 of Saagar’s friends had dinner with us. I was reminded of how much fun we would have talking about absolutely inconsequential things (drivel) for hours! The fabulous combination of a sharp intellect and a great sense of fun was familiar. Laughter filled the house. American, South African, Indian and Australian accents appeared and disappeared. Stories of travels, girl-friends, dysfunctional families, Facebook pictures and safe-spaces were shared. Opinions on demands for transgender toilets and identity politics were expressed. Future plans were discussed. B showed off her new elephant tattoo and I proudly displayed my Saagar tattoo. Food was polished off. Time flew past.

Wonder what he would have looked like at 22. Wonder what he would have done after graduation. Wonder if he would have had a girl-friend. The ‘missing’ is awful but ‘what might have been’ is killing too.

It was happy and sad. We missed him. Our love for him and his for us brought us closer together. That is the new normal – joyful and tragic at the same time – 2 sides of the same coin.