The Tinfoil Star

One year ago... one. I pulled out the video camera, my husband pulled out the Christmas tree and we decorated with the kids- their excitement reverberating on the small scree of the video player. He and I were happy, enjoying the animation of the children, getting them to fetch things we needed, getting them to pose for pictures together. We made a night of it, decorating, setting up the candles and lights and glittered decorations; and when the kids were in bed, we opened a bottle of red wine, toasting to our shared decorating, toasting to our next Christmas together, toasting to our future.

We were missing one piece - the star to go atop the Christmas tree. We had been meaning to get one for the past two years but always settled for the overbearing angel with cockeyed feathers and a freaky eye. But last year, last year, my husband decided to make something to go on the tree. He proceeded to draw a star on a piece of cardboard, perfecting every corner, measuring every angle and then finally cutting it out. Afterward, he sat and thought for a moment and then the AHA moment came - tinfoil. He covered it with tinfoil, taped the bottom somehow so that it would sit straight on the tree, and then put it up there. It was the ugliest and the prettiest topper I'd ever seen.

And this is just one memory that makes it nearly unbearable to get through the holidays. The tinfoil star is a symbol of what we all were to one another - a family. My family. Our family.

And that memory? It's being forced into a box of ornaments labeled, "his stuff."