In my wife's favorite book of the Bible, Ecclesiastes, we find the oft-repeated verse that begins: "To everything there is a season."
This Christmas season, we must allow ourselves both a time to laugh and a time to mourn. Having endured the deaths of six family members in the past 21 months, I know that is easier said than done.
In that same period of time, I married a woman I love more than I thought possible. I also met our newest family member, a beaming redhead who will celebrate her first Christmas with us. I hope that by next Christmas, my wife and I will give our precious second cousin a playmate.
Despite the pleasure I'll take in celebrating with my wife and the bewilderment I expect to see on the baby's face as she sees the colorful lights and wrapping paper piled about her, I know at times I'll think about those who aren't here with us.
On March 8, 2008, my mother, Linda Lawson, died at age 58 after a lengthy illness that forced her to retire from the Bessemer city school system.
Six months later, her oldest sister, Joyce, a retired nurse from Talladega, my cousin Kent, a 46-year-old who lived in Los Angeles and appeared in four films in the 1980s and early '90s, and my uncle Lynn, a Birmingham firefighter for 30 years, all died in the same week.
In the months that followed, Kent's mother, Nancy, also my mother's sister and a retired librarian, died. Soon after Nancy died, Joyce's husband, Roy, who ran his own plumbing company before succumbing to Alzheimer's, also died.
After that succession of funerals, once-cherished Christmas memories became painful reminders of those who had died.
Nancy each year sang "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" before the leaves changed color.
Lynn, a Vietnam veteran, each year gave us silver dollars. Roy, a Korean War veteran, told us each Thanksgiving there would be no presents because he shot Santa the year before. Joyce constantly broke up rigged games of bingo at the parties she and Nancy hosted.
"I'll Be Home for Christmas" once conjured thoughts of the holidays Kent couldn't make it home and the solo my mother once sang at Hopewell First Baptist Church's Christmas concert. Hearing those tunes now sends a chill through me.
My wife was understanding throughout the hospital stay that consumed my mother's final seven months. When the first holiday after Mom's death rolled around, she encouraged me to take time to grieve.
I found myself late at night listening to sad songs and, instead of thinking of all those good times, I dwelled on the holidays she spent at UAB Medical Center West and the many family members who suffered similar losses that year.
In public, I pushed the pain aside except for those rare moments, like when "I'll Be Home . . ." blared over a store's loud speaker and I found myself wiping my eyes.
Nearly two years later, happy memories of my mother enter my thoughts each day, although I still feel anger and guilt that perhaps I failed her during the long ordeal she faced in her final year.
I imagine my Uncle Jimmy and my Aunt Carrie and everyone else my departed relatives left behind have similar feelings.
Jimmy in one year lost his wife of 50 years, my aunt Nancy, and his son, Kent. Carrie became a grandmother not long after her husband of 40 years, Lynn, died at 60. The first great tragedy of that child's life (and the child I have yet to father) is that they lost loving grandparents before they ever even met them.
Christmas will be hard at times for Carrie and Jimmy and everyone else. But I believe we will find joy in those who are still here and look forward to those who will join us Christmases yet to come.
It is important to find a balance between placing poinsettias on tombstones and mourning lost traditions with taking time to celebrate the many things, and more important, the many people, we have to be thankful for.
This year, my wife and I got a new annual ornament with our picture on it. We hope next year's ornament will read "Baby's First Christmas."
But in my darker moments, I'll think of those I don't know who will pass the holiday season having lost loved ones in the tragedies I write about almost every night as a reporter for The News.
I think of Michael Wallace, the Graysville man whose wife was killed by their 16-year-old son. Wallace's mother died not long after that shooting. I think of the family members of a Pelham police officer whose lives were forever altered by a single gunshot. I also imagine the loved ones of the people whose young, bullet-riddled bodies I saw sprawled on the ground this year. They might not see it through the fog of sorrow, but I believe they, too, have much to be thankful for.
To those families and to my own, I hope we will let ourselves think of better times we shared with those we loved, and yet not feel the need to guiltily wipe away tears when our minds drift to the pain that inevitably comes with loss.
For those whose wounds are still so fresh you think you can feel nothing but pain, I hope God and those who share in your suffering give you the strength to celebrate, if only for a few moments.
Years ago, while tearing through an overstuffed closet, I came across several old photographs from Christmases past. In one, I was little more than a toddler. I thought of how many who huddled together to fit in the shot vanished through divorce or departed in death.
In another, I was nearly grown. In that picture, there were old and new smiling faces, and behind those eyes there were most assuredly lingering thoughts of the loss of those seen in older photos. The smiles in that shot, however, were not forced.
We knew then, and we know now, that Christmas is big enough for all these emotions.
It is a time to heal.
Jeremy Gray is a staff writer for The News. E-mail: jgray@al.com