For Dr Boyfriend and Sancho

Dr Boyfriend is my love. My rock. My best friend. My biggest supporter and as of late also my editor, personal assistant, travel manager and pep-talker. He married me and then I promptly left for medical school. (Thank you boyfriend!)

Right now our is a marriage via Skype, but it works. We have an amazing foundation and we know that we have the rest of our lives together so he supports me in what I want/need/have to do right now which is finish medical school. Even if it means we seldom sleep in the same bed or occupy the same time zone.

He loves Christmas as much/maybe more (is that possible?) than I do. We are so different and yet we share enough that we are happy together. I am sad when we are apart and cry often because I miss him. He is the romantic but I am the emotional sap. These last 3 and 1/2 years have been hard but I am lucky because I never once doubted our relationship, our ability to make it through. And now the end is in sight.

Dr Boyfriend is on a plane and on his way to meet me in NYC for New Year's and we will run our 5K in Prospect Park and cross the finish line before 2013. It is our new tradition and I cannot wait. 2013 awaits and I am in love with my husband...

And we both love our puppy. Sancho is probably the most significant thing to happen to us as a couple in 2012 and it was more rewarding and more fun and more stressful than I could have ever imagined or hoped. I never knew it was possible to love a dog so much. But we do. 

Dr Boyfriend and Sancho do their best to make me happy. And it is enough. So this is for them. The last of my virtual ornaments and an adieu to 2012....

For his mother

Nancy Lanza, 52

Mother of gunman

Another virtual ornament and moment to reflect on another life lost and the cost to all of us when we shy away from talking about mental illness and those affected by it, we are not immune.

Please read this article and think twice before you blame his mother. We do not know the specifics but mental illness has no easy answers....

For the babes

In memory of these children and the too-short lives they lived...

Charlotte Bacon, 6

Daniel Barden, 7

Olivia Engel, 6

Josephine Gay, 7

Ana Marquez-Greene, 6

Dylan Hockley, 6

Madeleine Hsu, 6

Catherine Hubbard, 6

Chase Kowalski, 7

Jesse Lewis, 6 

James Mattioli, 6

Grace McDonnell, 7

Emilie Parker, 6

Jack Pinto, 6

Noah Pozner, 6

Caroline Previdi, 6

Jessica Rekos, 6

Avielle Richman, 6

Benjamin Wheeler, 6

Allison N. Wyatt, 6

For the teachers

A virtual ornament to remember those that perished on Friday, the teachers and educators that dedicated their careers and ultimately their lives...

Rachel Davino, 29

Teacher

Dawn Hochsprung, 47

School principal

Anne Marie Murphy, 52

Teacher

Lauren Rousseau, 30

Teacher

Mary Sherlach, 56

School psychologist

Victoria Soto, 27

Teacher

For Sophie

and Elizabeth over at a moon, worn as if it had been a shell

This virtual ornament is the idea that inspired virtual ornaments. I was at the American Epilepsy Society meeting last week and came across this ornament which I knew I had to have. I was originally going to send it to Elizabeth and Sophie but then realized that they live with epilepsy EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. and thus really don't need an ornament to remind them... but I do love me some purple and so why couldn't I have the ornament for my tree? And so I donated some money and took it home... where it now resides.

As you may know I am applying for residency in Child Neurology and a large portion of my future patients will have epilepsy. This is no cure. There are medications and diets and surgeries that sometimes work, for some patients and there there are those like Sophie who are somehow above any treatments the medical world throws their way. My heart breaks, it does. I don't know if we will ever have the ever-elusive "cure" as there are so many reasons for and varieties of epilepsy but I do know that part of my career will be interacting with the families affected. Elizabeth and other bloggers have opened my eyes to the lives that are lived beyond the walls of the hospital or medical clinic. The world of IEPs and wheelchairs and affected marriages but most of all the world of love that they (Sophie,  Calvin, Max, Pearlsky) create as part of being. The compassionate siblings and more patient parents. The better world. And so to Sophie and Elizabeth I dedicate this ornament. One for my tree, one for theirs....

Virtual Ornaments

I am not sure exactly why, but I've been thinking of people that I only know because of this blog lately... And well, while we may not be meet-for-coffee or call-up-on-the-phone friends we share a world and we share a community and so this holiday season I've been thinking of them...

And if you know me or have been following this blog for any length of time you know how much I LOVE all things Christmas.

Ornaments are especially one of my Christmas time favorites and so I give you virtual ornaments.  (Ornaments that I would very much like to find wrap and send but I don't even know the addresses of any of these bloggers, just their web addresses.) I will dedicate these ornaments to those fellow blogger that have inspired me this year. Those bloggers that made me laugh or cry or just make me think.

Happy Hanukah, Merry Christmas and good cheer to all this Holiday Season!

Love,
Spice Queen