The chaos of Christmas morning, ribbons, paper, and excited shrieks, felt surreal the year after our 20-month-old son, Aiden, died unexpectedly during surgery. Suddenly, shopping for two children instead of three was a stark new reality, a painful adjustment to a world that would never quite feel right again.
The previous Christmas had been spent differently.
My husband, Nick, handed me my stocking, and my daughter exaggerated her movements as she walked on her knees to bring it over. Inside, among the usual trinkets, was an “Easy Button”—a plastic novelty item designed to simplify problems with a single press. It was a knock-off, plain white instead of the classic bright red.
“Press it,” Nick said, and as I did, a muffled recording filled the room. It was Aiden, laughing with his siblings. The sound stopped as quickly as it began, leaving a raw silence. The recording was just 15 seconds long but the moment was perfect. The kids had picked it out together, a small act of shared remembrance.
Grief, though, doesn’t disappear. It lingers in empty spaces, in the familiar ache of absence.
When my friend Ashley needed someone to watch her toddler, Will, while she recovered from childbirth, we agreed immediately. Having a little one around again felt both daunting and necessary, a way to test the edges of our sorrow and see if there was room for new joy.
Aiden’s crib, moved into our bedroom after his death, still stood as a makeshift shrine. To make room for Will, we carefully boxed away blankets, stuffed animals, and a plaster mold of Aiden’s tiny hand.
Will was the same age Aiden had been when he was diagnosed with cancer, and for a fleeting moment, watching him crawl and babble, the past and present blurred. My older son, 10 at the time, observed with quiet curiosity, sometimes trailing off mid-sentence with a wistful, “That’s just like Aiden.”
The Easy Button reappeared on my desk, and when Will picked it up, I wanted him to press it. It felt significant, a way to include Aiden in this new chapter. He did, pressing it repeatedly, triggering the recording in fractured bursts of laughter. Nick and I exchanged a knowing smile.
The week with Will was exhausting but full of life. We sang songs, cut up food, and remembered what it felt like to look forward to naptime. When Ashley came to pick him up, I felt a bittersweet fullness. We had survived, and even found moments of joy within the grief.
But grief is relentless. When Will left, the house fell quiet again. The emptiness returned, familiar and aching.
My grandparents’ generation rarely spoke of loss, pushing it into the shadows. I chose a different path, filling our home with reminders of Aiden: photos, socks in the car, his funeral poster leaning against a wall.
The holiday season is a stark reminder of what’s missing. One empty highchair, one fewer letter to Santa, one more year without our son. Our grief won’t disappear, but it will evolve. The crib is now disassembled in the garage. The toys will eventually be donated.
The Easy Button, once a useless gift, became a lifeline. It allows me to revisit Aiden’s laughter, anger, or joy when I need it. It’s a beautiful reminder that love doesn’t vanish with death. By celebrating his life, we keep that love alive.
The pain is still present, but the gift of remembering, of keeping a part of him close, has become a source of solace. The gift keeps on giving.
Emily Henderson is a runner and writer living in Santa Barbara, CA, with her husband and three children. She writes the Substack, The Bittersweet Weekly.
