I say that all my kids were together on Saturday. That’s not entirely true. Trina has been gone for 15 Christmases. A brain tumor first treated with surgery and radiation when she was just turning 13, ended up taking her life 10 years later. Trina loved Christmas and the first Christmas after her death we had presents under the tree that she bought earlier that year.

Trina is not totally absent on those rare occasions when the rest of us are together, but since I don't know how to deal with her absence, for the most part I treat it with silence.