It’s hanging again. Her ornament. It faces my spot on the couch where I do most of my work day in and day out. It hangs at just about eye view. The silver shininess of the ornament catches my eye when I glance out the window to look at the snow that continues to layer itself on our apple tree outside.

I can’t imagine not having her ornament on our tree.

It’s something little. To most people it might even register as insignificant. It isn’t Earth-shattering or all that big and bold. It’s just an ornament on a Christmas tree. Right?

It still means so much more to me.

I bought it on clearance in late Spring after her first Christmas. I was meandering around Hallmark, looking for things which have long since been forgotten. I noticed that the ornaments were 75% off the lowest marked price so I took a look. One “Baby’s First Christmas” ornament from 2003 was sitting in the pile. Just one. I bought it without thinking.

I didn’t hang it in 2004.

I was just coming out from under the dark veil of denial of the first year of adoption. While our relationship was fine, I was beginning to feel things that I didn’t quite understand. In fact, some of the things I was feeling felt wrong. Was I allowed to regret things? Was I allowed to miss her so deeply, so viscerally? Was I allowed to think of “what if” and ask why? I didn’t know. The thoughts scared me. They overwhelmed me. And so acting like any other reasonable adult, I ignored them just as I ignored the ornament when I pulled the decorations out to deck the halls that year. I ignored what that meant.

I don’t think I hung it up in 2005 either. In fact, I know I didn’t. My heart was heavy with the realization of all I had lost as I cradled my newborn oldest son in my arms. I couldn’t begin to comprehend what hanging her ornament or lacking to do so meant for me. I couldn’t even comprehend at that time how the relinquishment of my firstborn was going to forever affect how I parented the children under my roof. I wasn’t in denial that year. I was clueless as to everything that placing a child had done to my soul.

Come 2006, after completing almost a full year of therapy, I pulled out the box and opened it for the first time. Turns out that the little star that said “Baby’s First” wasn’t properly attached to the ornament and fell off. I hung it that year, the first in our new home, without the star. It was a step. A baby step. But a step.

In 2007, I fastened the star to the ornament with some fishing line, courtesy of my nature loving husband. And every year since, it has been proudly displayed on our tree.

Maybe the story of how an ornament hangs on our tree means nothing to you. It says volumes about my healing. I was once unable to even consider hanging up something that put my heart on the line, my story on a tree, visible to all who entered our home. It has taken me years to get to a point where I not only need to hang it up like the rest of our ornaments but I am proud to do so. That ornament? Is a silver, shiny, dangling representation of my daughter, what she means in my life and what I have been through to keep her in my life. It’s not just an ornamental decoration to me.

This ornament and its reflection, both visual on the ornament and here in words, represent this journey I have endured and will continue to endure for years to come.