This season felt surrounded by acceptance. I have to admit I didn’t know what to expect when we decided to spend Christmas on the East Coast with my in-laws instead of celebrating with my family in the Midwest. At first it felt like we were hiding away from the members of my family that still don’t understand or accept Hope’s gender transition, but my feelings changed when I saw how excited my kids were about the switch.

Our family on the East Coast embraced Hope despite their rigid cultural background and even more strict gender roles. Still, they open their arms wide to accept us for exactly who we are- imperfect, fragile, different.

It felt like entering a witness protection program being there even though I noticed some signs of our past life here and there. One day I caught Hope running her finger along the top of a beautiful 8 x 10 picture frame that displayed a photo of her when she was a little boy. I stopped in the doorway wondering if she would ask for the picture to be taken down like she has at my mother’s house. She stopped, stared for a while and then just gracefully dropped her finger to her side and skipped away. I wiped the tears that trailed down my cheek and slid along my neck.

Only once during our visit did we sit in the same room as these pictures and ironically the subject of conversation turned to the long line of family members that have the same name. The tradition of their family is for the first born boy to have his grandfather’s name so that the family name is preserved throughout history. I watched my father-in-law’s face as he talked about the names so proud and yet so soft. It seemed like any other conversation and then drifted into another and another. No one mentioned the fact that Hope is actually her grandfather’s namesake, legally reflecting his name on her birth certificate, but I felt it hover above us and then drift off like a candle that had been blown out.

Even after we returned home, I longed for the security we have there. The feeling I have searched for my entire life. This year I didn’t get a single wrapped gift, but I did get the best present I have ever received.

Since Hope socially transitioned her gender this summer some family members have reached out and expressed their love and support. Some people in our extended family have stayed in the background defining Hope’s transition as “my mistake” and “my decision”. Rather than talk with me directly, they have chosen to gossip about my family like we were the topic of a catty talk show where loud women sit around and judge others. Needless to say, this changes holiday plans significantly.

After writing an article about sparing your holiday nightmare, I started to think about what that means for us. This year we opt to host a celebration in our new home. I know, how insane to have a holiday dinner only 5 days after moving in! Nevertheless, we can’t go backwards and do things like we have for years. Things have changed and I feel the need to create new traditions and celebrations to keep my family safe.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons we opted to move into a larger home, to have the ability to create the memories we long to cherish. A warm house filled with love and laughter. A big table filled with those we love and who genuinely love us. Sure, the table might be scarcely filled at first, but watch as the guest list grows year by year.

My fondest memory of the holidays is a solitary one. After the clanging of pots and pans invaded my dreams, I peered at the bedroom door of my youth to find the glow of the kitchen light creeping up the stairs. I’d close my eyes and savor the smell of Grandma’s bread baking in the oven. I didn’t call out. I didn’t get up. I didn’t help my mother. I just stayed there- safe and secure as the holiday dinner simmered in the hush of the early morning hours. Even though it only happened at Thanksgiving and Christmas, I waited for that moment all year like an addict. I never told anyone. Guess I didn’t want anything to change. As if my acknowledgement would affect the sequence and ruin my treasure forever.

It’s funny. I am not even sure when I experienced that moment in person for the last time. Still, I hold it dear to me like an expression of love. I guess what I crave more than anything is the feeling of security and the knowledge that I know what is happening next. The very thing that I’ll never experience in my parent’s home again.

This is how it dawned on me that we had done so much to change Hope’s appearance to match her gender identity- buy new girls clothes, get some bows and headbands for her pixie, get new shoes that we got sidetracked in a way. We forgot somehow that the room that she shares with her little brother still reflected the same boys design it always had. Sure, her name and pronoun are different, but the room she goes to bed in every night and wakes every morning still looks the same as it did before she transitioned. It even had a canvas picture with her former name. How did I forget this?

Be gentle with yourself, Jen. I keep telling myself that things don’t change overnight. (Someone tell me how many days it took to build Rome… anyone?) Right now “one foot in front of the other” can keep me sane when I start to think of the things I have yet to do. The many things that I need to do for Hope. But truly, do those things matter as much as love?

This weekend we transitioned the kids room. The canvas picture got a face-lift with some funky gender neutral fabric. After my staple gun got a hold of it- look out! It was adorable. We installed some shelves for their favorite items. Added a funky picture to tie in all the new colors. Split their clothes between two makeshift dressers. Hope got a new bedspread and Will picked out new accessories. Their names went up by their beds and voila! Things were fresh and new. Such small things made a huge difference.

Everyone was delighted including me, until I took a step back and thought about the fact I just took away my first born’s name off the wall. His name is gone. Yes, she is still here and she is the same person, but the name I cooed to him when he was little has vanished. The name my husband and I chose (despite Armenian tradition that defined the other name on his birth certificate) is now covered, packed away like all the pictures painted in preschool with his jagged name scribbled on the bottom and those silver engraved frames that you get when the baby is born.

He’s gone.

I felt the same way when Hope just transitioned and I stood in the hallway looking at her last school picture- as a boy. Such a little man- sassy short haircut, just slightly tousled in a way that many can only dream of achieving. Crisp checkered button-down shirt and those bright, gorgeous eyes. The moment I got the picture from the school I said “He will be such a handsome man” to myself. And now that has all changed. I would be lying if I said it didn’t hurt, this saying goodbye to the way things were.

Shortly after I talked with my sister who sent me about a phenomenal story and here it is.

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this……

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”

“Holland?!?” you say. “What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”

But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around…. and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills….and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy… and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.”

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away… because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But… if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things … about Holland.

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Our life isn’t about grief or mourning. We have so much to be grateful for and thrilled about, but there are these little moments when the reality floods over me like a sudden downpour and I am trapped. I am consumed by the fact I have to let go. I have to say goodbye to what I thought our future looked like. And open my loving arms to embrace what is.