I learned at Christmas in 1993 that I love to write. I had just had a baby. There were three children under four in the house; two older step-sons visited on weekends. In the rare moments that the house was settled and I could have been resting, I sat at my father-in-law's Brother typewriter and wrote draft after draft of our Christmas letter. Like today, writing provided quiet time to process life. For a decade or more, before the world of blogging and social media, taking time to write our annual Christmas letter was a gift to myself and the route I used to connect with distant aunts and uncles, old friends from college, and the parents of childhood friends.

I had hoped to post some photos for Nathaniel's third birthday last week, but a sudden hospitalization reorganized all plans. He had a runny nose and sneezes on Friday, November 21st, and I assumed it was a virus. Nathaniel has had a handful of viruses that come and go like they do for most children. He woke up coughing Friday night and threw up. The night nurse needed to put him on oxygen -  often our first indicator that he aspirated.