Days of Thanks #27

I think I've done a post just like this each of the last two years, too.  Today I am grateful for music and for music's ability sometimes to express that which I cannot express.

Christmas is a week from today.  But it doesn't feel like Christmas to me at all.  Maybe it's because we still aren't living in our own house and all my favorite decorations and all my Hudson ornaments are packed away in boxes.  Maybe it's because tomorrow is the tenth anniversary of my mother's death, and the memory of that terribly sad Christmas is closer to me than I realized.  Maybe it's because 20 children, babies really, were murdered in cold blood a few days ago and I still can't get my head around what those parents are facing this Christmas.  Maybe it's because this year, we'll be celebrating our third Christmas without Hudson, which is one more Christmas than we had a chance to celebrate with her.  Maybe it's because I'm looking back to the last Christmas we had with her and am stunned to think that it was only three years ago.  Stunned to think that it was such a terribly long three years ago.  Maybe it's just because I miss her.  

I don't know why, but it doesn't really feel like Christmas to me this year.  It's been very hard to get into the Christmas spirit.  I haven't bought a single gift.  I haven't made plans for Jackson to see Santa. I haven't thought about feeding our family when they come.  I'm just not feeling it. 

So today, I'm grateful for a song that seems to understand this feeling.  I'd never heard this song from The Pretenders before today, when a bereaved mom friend of mine posted it on Facebook.  The Pretenders wrote it after their guitar player died at the age of 25.

I hear people singing.  It must be Christmas time.



He's gone,
2000 miles
Is very far
The snow's falling down
It's colder day by day
I miss you
The children were singing
He'll be back at Christmas time
And these frozen and silent nights
Sometimes in a dream
You appear
Outside under the purple sky
Diamonds in the snow
Sparkle
Our hearts were singing
It felt like Christmas time
2000 miles
Is very far through the snow
I'll think of you
Wherever you go
He's gone
2000 miles
Is very far
The snow's falling down
It's colder day by day
I miss you
I can hear people singing
It must be Christmas time
I hear people singing
It must be Christmas time