Week Before Christmas
I love Christmas, don’t get me wrong. But seeing everyone all happy and in love and spending time with their families reminds me of the one person who isn’t here to celebrate her favorite holiday of the year.
My mom.
It’s been years since she passed but it was sudden and happened without any warning that it left a mark on my heart that has not and will never go away.
Every Christmas, I light a candle on the window frame of wherever I am at the time so she can look down and know I’m thinking of her.
This year it’s really weighing on me. Whatever I do, I can’t shake the feeling that there’s always a piece of my heart that’ll be missing.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy with my life. I’m living the dream in Timber Falls. The Cooper brothers and their wives have all welcomed me into their family with open arms. And I come home to Bull and Spring Haven as often as I can to see Dad, Mags, and the rest of the ranch family.
But as I sithere on a bench in the Spring Haven town square watching Christmas festivities wind down after a busy all-dayfestival, it dawns on me that despite being content and happy, I’m still a little… lost.
I may have finally found my place in the world at Cooper Ranch, somewhere I can really make a difference and share the knowledge Dad instilled in me to help rebuild the property. A home where I can give back to the mountain. It’s where I belong. For however long that may be.
Yet, there’s something still missing.
“Hey,” a warm voice says from beside me. “Is this seat taken?”
I look up to see Sage Roberts, Colton’s sister, sitting down next to me.
Colton came to live and work with us at Bull Mountain Ranch, along with Rhett, Austin, Toby, and Landry Graham. It’s where my Dad and I lived too once all of us retired from the rodeo circuit to bring the derelict and neglected ranch back to life.
Colton and his now wife, Leah, originally lived at Eagle Mountain Ranch, along with Sage–who happens to be Leah’s best friend.
Sage has visited a number of times over the years, but we usually miss each other given I was crab fishing before coming to Timber Falls and she’s constantly moving around, trying out different jobs and vocations, trying to find a good fit.
Because of the age gap between us, my nineteen years to her late twenties, I can’t say we’re friends. I’ve always been Red Grayson’s son, the kid of the ranch. It’s one of the reasons I left to forge my own path as soon as I could.
“Is it always like this?” she asks.
“Like what?”
“So…happy,” she sighs.
I snort and cock my head. “Maybe you need to talk to Santa. He makeseveryonehappy, don’t you know,” I tease.
“Tried that. It didn’t work,” she looks out to the crowd in the distance. “I don’t know about you, but this time of year always makes me miss my parents.”
Sage and her brothers and sister lost their mom and then their dad years ago. “I was thinkin’ the same thing. It’s not that I’m not happy, it just feels like–”
“Somethin’ or someone’smissin’,” she answers for me.
Silence falls between us until I whisper my biggest unanswered question. “Does it ever get easier?”
She shrugs. “Would you ever want it to? In my mind, wouldn’t that mean that you’re forgettin’ them?”
As I stare into her soulful eyes, something jolts inside of me. It’s not like the earth moves or like being struck by lightning or anything. It’s more like something clicking into place deep inside of me. I shake my head to myself, not even wanting to contemplate what the hell just happened, because it’s not possible. Not now. Not Sage.
“I could never forget Mom,” I reply.
“I couldn’t forget my parents either. I wouldn’t ever want to.”
“So, what are we supposed to do? Be sad every holiday?”
“Cherish them. Remember them. Live your life always strivin’ to make them proud,” she says, still staring at me.