Christmas at two years old, with my grandmother and brother

She was born Margaret D'Imperio, but was known as Peggy to her friends.  I called her Grandmom, and I knew that she, like her son, my Uncle Danny, loved me through and through.  I never doubted that.  They never gave me cause.  In their presence we were happy.

Here I am with Grandmom and my brother.  I'm two years old, standing proudly on my new stool, a Christmas gift.  I scanned this photo this morning from the wooden album my father gave me to after my own mother passed away.

We have a certain understanding of the holidays, shaped by the people we have loved.  When they are gone, nothing ever seems quite right again.  I have a small family myself now—a beautiful husband and son.  Today I'll cook for them as if I'm cooking for a gathering of many.  I'll light the house with candles, fill the house with song.  But all along I will be remembering those more joyfully crowded Christmases, and the people I have lost over the course of a long and ever-rich life.