Well...

...it looks like we're back to a box of tissues by the bed and late nights of therapeutic blogging.

It's that kind of holiday season for us.  The real kind.  The kind that doesn't bother much with trimmings and trappings, but that treasures every minute of togetherness and savors every last drop of love.

We visited Mom in the hospital the Friday before Thanksgiving.  She was weary from days of exploratory surgeries and yellow from a dangerously high bilirubin count.  But the minute Dad took Lucy and Spencer out of the room to stretch their legs, she determinedly told me the news:  pancreatic cancer; six months - give or take.

I nodded soberly and tried to match her determination, but we could only lock eyes for a moment before the nurse bustled in to perform a blood pressure check and provide shift change information.  I attempted to follow the routine conversation, tried to nod at all the right times, but finally had to turn my eyes to the floor as tears leaked out in a silent flow.  Brenda reached for my hand and held it securely until the nurse finished her business and left us alone.

Thanksgiving came six days later.  And it was wonderful.  Mom came home from the hospital.  And everyone else came home too.  We were only minus two missionaries.

In lots of ways, everything was normal.  Julie's jello salad, Brent's squash soup, Lucy curled up outside with cousins and cats.  But some things were different.  Mom was wearing an oxygen tube when she wasted us all in her first-ever game of "Heads Up" with Haley's phone.

Dad's face was pinched tightly with tears before our Thanksgiving prayer.  And nobody complained even once during the prolonged and smashed together process of several dozen family pictures.

The rest of the week was totally unscheduled.  Everyone came and went.  I loved that Julie and Mark both made quiet, independent trips to the store and returned with trunks full of almost identical contents - from water softener salt to minky soft blankets.  They'd even selected the same brand of soup to stockpile in Mom and Dad's fridge.

All the while, Mom, modeling a cozy line of flannel, floral nightgowns, sat in the corner rocking chair of her bedroom and sometimes enjoyed, sometimes tolerated the way we all rotated through in different configurations of children and grandchildren, neighbors and friends.  Sometimes we sat in chairs and on benches and smiled and cried.  Other times we sprawled across Mom and Dad's kingsized bed and laughed.  LAUGHED.

And there's certainly more of all that to come.  More crying and laughing.  And there's a heaviness to be born.  But I know there will be help to carry the burden.

My heart these past weeks has treasured up Isaiah's description of the Savior, "He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief...Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows." (Isaiah 53)

The Sunday after Thanksgiving, Sacrament Meeting opened with hymn #95:

Now thank we all our God
With hearts and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things hath done,
In whom his earth rejoices;
Who, from our mothers' arms,
Hath blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love
And still is ours today.

My voice cut out after that fifth line,

but my heart continued to sing,

Oh, may our bounteous God
Through all our life be near us,
With ever-joyful hearts
And blessed peace to cheer us.