It is hard to describe the ambivalence I am feeling today, the day we are celebrating Thanksgiving in my family. (I have to work tomorrow and the weekend.) Last year I was holding a red pepper by my belly, thinking excitedly ahead to this year, when my baby would be 6 months old, and tasting stuffing and green bean casserole for the first time.
A year later I am once again posing for Thanksgiving photos, and much like I had imagined, with a baby on my hip, a baby who is going to be experiencing her own first Thanksgiving and then Christmas. I baby I love more than my own life.
Not the same baby. And not the same me. There was an innocence in that woman’s eyes that will never be found in my eyes again. There was a certainty that life would not fail me, that tragedy would not strike my own.
My sadness and my joy, vying for first place during this holiday season.
Mother of All Things 
Life is so very bittersweet. Wishing you more of the sweet this year. Take care. xo