Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus

I've heard that time heals all wounds. This is the second Christmas without my mother. Last year I could barely open the boxes of ornaments. This year I proudly displayed each one, finding new meaning in Christmas, everyone and everything.

My mother requested happiness from all after her death. No moping around feeling sorry for ourselves. She also vowed to come back. I asked her how I would know it was her (would she reincarnate in a cat)? She jokingly replied, "Oh, you'll know."

As I watch my sister about to turn 40 and expecting her second child, a girl, Hazel Evelyn, named after our grandmother and mother, I wonder if this is my mother's way of coming back. Will Hazel tap dance and shine like Peg?

Then there's Summer who's expecting a child in May. This is the girl who would never have a child, "not on your fucking life."

I sit in my house with Michael, so in love, surrounded by two Dalmations who I've grown to love (I'm a cat person) wondering how we all got here. Is there really such a thing as divine intervention? I'm beginning to believe in fairy tales and happy endings, Santa Claus, and an angel named Peg.

"Faith is believing when common sense tells you not to. Don't you see?"
- Fred Gailey