By an anonymous therapist

December 21, 2020

My Mom Sent Us A Christmas Miracle

2020 has been a hard year. The Corona virus, social distancing, election craziness, everything. But the hardest for my family has been that my mom died this year.

It wasn’t because of the corona virus. She had cancer that progressed rapidly, but the pandemic made it very hard. We were limited in who could come to visit. Many friends and family didn’t get a chance to see her and say goodbye. We haven’t even had the ability to have a funeral/memorial. It’s been….hard.

My mom was magical. Maybe part of this was her being a therapist, but also it was just part of her soul and who she was as a person. Holidays were her thing. At Christmas time she would cook big feasts and we would have friends and family over. She made magic in all kinds of ways: hiding an icicle in the tree that we searched for as kids, her tower of nesting boxes she put gifts in, and the yule log we would burn on Christmas eve while recalling all the things that had happened over the year.

One of the hardest things for me about this loss has been how I handle it with my sons (1 and 5 years old). My five year old was deeply, closely bonded to my mom. They did everything together. He would visit with her weekly and she would take him to the farmers market, spend time with friends, and attend gymnastics and swimming classes. She was very special to him and I want him to remember her and carry her magic in his heart forever.

I’ve been doing my best this holiday season, but I don’t know that I can match the wonder my mom created for me, my sister, and for a brief time, my son. Like many of the wonderful things she did for our family, I don’t know how she did all of this. I’m taking my boys to see Christmas lights, making Christmas cookies, and filling their lives with whimsy in any way I can, but I think I’m over compensating with gifts.

-I’m doing my best, but I think there will always be a sense that something (someone) is missing-

A letter came for my son in the mail this week.

It was addressed from my parents’ house and we assumed my sister or dad had sent it.

My son opened it and found that it was a Christmas card from my mom.

Last year, 7 months before she died, we took a family trip to San Francisco and stayed at the Sir Francis Drake for a couple of nights. This was all my mom’s doing. She wanted to share the magic of Christmas time in San Francisco with my boys. We saw the tree in Union Square, puppies and kittens for adoption in the windows of Macy’s. It was magical.

At the Sir Francis Drake they have an old mail delivery slot in the Lobby. My mom and my son bought a Christmas card together, filled it out, and dropped it in the slot, to be delivered to my son.

It disappeared. We never received it and gave it up for lost…..until it arrived in the mail this week.

Even when she’s no longer with us my mom is making Christmas magic.

I wasn’t sure if maybe this was something The Sir Francis Drake Hotel does or if the card had gotten lost in the mail or something. I called the Sir Francis Drake, but they were closed due to covid restrictions. I emailed the manager and got a response back from him today. He said that in some of his free time after closing down the hotel he found a slot in the bowels of the hotel that apparently diverted some of the mail. He found our card and sent it out to be delivered.

My mom is still with us, creating magic for my boys. Even when she’s not physically here with us. This was such a special thing to get in the mail and we will treasure it always. In a way, its funny that I felt the need to verify how it got to us. This is totally the type of thing my mom would have planned. She gave us a true Christmas miracle, and in that way, She is still with us this holiday season.

This blog post was written by an anonymous therapist. You can read their article about their mother’s death here: I Was Adopted By My Therapist.

-Update- I sent this post to the manager at The Sir Francis Drake Hotel and he said “I just shared it with my 10 year old who helped me collect them and mail them out – it brought him to tears and made him so happy to read that he played a part in this.”