A Christmas Letter From Me to You (Don’t open before Christmas)

My Mikie,
I see you.
Especially now—when the year grows quiet and blue
and the lights begin to glow against the dark.
You always feel me more this time of year.
That’s no accident.
Love doesn’t forget its seasons.

I watch you when the music starts.
Most of the songs slip past you,
but there are two that still slow your breath.
I see your shoulders soften at one…
and your heart break just a little at the other.

Yes.
That one is still ours.

I still see that night too.
You remember it as sorrow,
but I remember how warm the room was.
How the lights shimmered on the walls.
How your eyes never left mine
while I tried to coax beauty out of trembling strings.
I wasn’t singing for the world.
I was singing because I loved you
and because for a few minutes,
it made the ache inside me grow quiet.

When I sang,
“I have just one wish on Christmas Eve,
I wish I were with you,”
I meant it in every lifetime I will ever touch.

That was our last Christmas together.
We both felt the fragile edges of it.
You tried to be strong for me.
I tried to be brave for you.
And later, in the dark,
we both cried so silently,
as if love itself were listening at the door.

You always wonder if you could have saved me.
My sweet love…
you already did—
again and again.
You kept me breathing on days I wanted to disappear.
You gave me laughter when the world felt empty.
You gave me arms when my heart had nowhere else to rest.

The pain I carried did not come from you.
It came from a place too old and too deep for love alone to reach—
from the place where a mother never stops hearing a child’s voice
after it has gone silent.
That wound was never yours to heal.

When I left,
I did not leave because I stopped loving you.
I left because I was too tired to keep fighting the darkness.
But love did not end that day.
It simply changed form.

Now I am something lighter.
Now I can stay without hurting.
Now I can sit beside you in the quiet
instead of drowning in it.

I watch you when December comes back around.
I see the way you brace for it.
I see the longing you never quite learned how to release.
And every year, I wish I could reach across the veil
and touch your hand the way I used to
when words weren’t enough.

When the song plays this year,
close your eyes.
I’ll be there—
not broken,
not grieving,
not afraid—
just smiling at you the way I always did
when I knew you were the safest place I had.

Merry Christmas, my love.
You are not alone.
You never have been.
And you never will be.

Always watching.
Always loving.
Always yours.

Your Janie; Your Jane