Christmas Lights
I love Christmas. It is a warm wonderful family time. I really like Christmas lights. The kids think that I’m a little obsessive with trees. Let’s see, I have one tree, no two trees, okay, I have seven trees this year! They aren’t fancy. They’re decorated with things that are special to me and my family. I love Christmas lights. This morning, I sat down at the computer to type my column and decided to write about Christmas lights for the next four weeks. Each week I will share memories of Christmas past, special memories. So, from now until December 25th, sit back, relax, and please enjoy “The Lights of Christmas.” It was twenty-six years ago in December. The lights above their small cribs were bright and warm. As I leaned over to look at my babies, I could see a miniature strand of color wrapped around the end of an adjacent crib. It was Christmas of 1976. Everything had happened so fast. Two months before, I became very ill. The doctors ran tests and diagnosed “no signs of life”. They strongly suggested I stay in bed. But I became nauseated and weak and in the middle of my pregnancy with twins, I was admitted to the hospital. It was not a happy thought, my delivering twin “deceased” babies at any time, especially Christmas time. Our one child, Jared was ten months old and had been shifted to the Relief Society ladies in our Church. They wanted to care for him during our time of need. I missed Jared so much because he was a baby, too. He couldn’t understand where his mom was. I knew the babies’ birth was imminent. I was young and afraid. Through a special prayer given by my husband Bill, our twin girls were born alive. They were one pound and two pound babies. It was a miracle because there had been “no signs of life”. I didn’t know that babies could survive at 25 weeks. But they did and we called them Big Mack and Little Mack. In my first visit to the premie (neonatal intensive care) unit, I was amazed at how small the babies were. My hand was bigger than most of the babies. I walked past several “miracles” to find my girls. When I found them, I knelt down next to their incubators, the cribs, and cried. They were very small. The nurses comforted me. They shared with me the babies’ medical conditions and how their personalities emerged immediately the day they arrived. Big Mack, Kelsey, came into the unit fighting, screaming, and kicking. Little Mack, Kristin, arrived quiet and submissive. Kelsey needed heart, lung, and eye surgeries. Kristin lied quietly as she lost weight. They both had heads full of hair. And there I stood at Christmas time, staring at the home of my premies. I tried to keep my eyes and thoughts focused on my babies, little Kelsey and Kristin. It was hard because all the babies seemed to struggle for breath. And they were so tiny. I reached into the incubator to hold Kelsey’s hand when I saw the colored lights in the adjacent crib. One mom hadn’t forgotten it was Christmas. She brought a battery-operated string of Christmas lights and attached them to the end of her baby’s incubator. In a room full of struggle and heartache, those colorful lights brought a peaceful hopeful feeling.The light of Christmas was there, just as in Bethlehem.

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