We considered all kinds of things to keep Keegan in our Christmas, traditions to change or add - nothing seemed to really stand out as right for us. Christmas is a pretty big deal at our house – not because we buy a ton of big extravagant gifts, but when you parent multiple children, I think we all try to be as fair as we possibly can and I am one of those people that tends to organize to the nth degree, on occasion. J I have a spreadsheet with formulas calculating totals and the not only are the number of gifts even, but so is the dollar amount (our blended family consists of 6 children-I have GOT to be on my game). On top of that, we usually have some sort of ‘code’ that accompanies the gifts. Kids are nosy and I don’t appreciate spending all of the time I do shopping, wrapping and decorating gifts to have them know what they’re opening before the paper is off. One year each kid had their own paper (regardless of the name on the tag – one had the green paper, one was candy cane, etc), one year each kid was assigned a reindeer name (Keegan was Blitzen). My favorite, however – was the year we sorted all of the gifts out and had the kids switch places with their sibling. All of Keegan’s gifts were labeled Tyler and Tyler’s gifts were labeled Keegan…like I said, it’s always interesting. We’ve finally been able to keep them from nosing around the tree figuring out which gifts belong to them because they doubt the tag is an honest indication of who the gift is for – and they’re right! A couple of the kids awesomely provided me with Amazon lists of what they’d like this year and the others were pretty easy – so some of the normal issues I struggle with weren’t present this time, thankfully. As we all know, I had other issues I was dealing with this year. My numbers were skewed and my shopping plans awry because Keegan wasn’t a part of them. No new jeans in size 32/30 – no Men’s medium Ohio State items (his little brother was pleased to accept OSU items in his own size, however), no new Puma socks, no camping gear to add for next year’s trips – instead we are disbursing those gifts from Christmases past to his brothers. What a twisted change of events. I don’t like it. At all. I guess I don’t have to and I’m sure nobody expects me to. I was in a funk and I knew it, but couldn’t quite figure out why. I didn’t complain, didn’t say a word to a soul – but one of my dear friends, who knows me and my Christmas production well, had the foresight to identify it for me a couple of days before Christmas AND give me an idea on how to address it for next year. (have I mentioned recently how blessed in my friendships I am?). She had suggested adopting a child in need for Christmas and spend the money on them that we would’ve spent on Keegan. I loved that idea and the representation to carry the memory of Keegan into Christmas and to bring light and love to another person at a time where we can’t help but feel a loss. When I talked to my husband about it – we came up with something that correlates perfectly with Keegan and the life he lived.
Keegan was tremendously passionate about playing club
soccer. Unfortunately, it’s also very expensive in addition to the expense of
the fees - new uniforms, warm ups and cleats were often also his birthday and
Christmas gifts because we couldn’t justify those expenses in addition to the
soccer things. Keegan sacrificed plenty to play the game he loved and Keegan
knew he wasn’t ‘righted’ anything. Not even his mandatory Puma soccer socks. He
worked a lot of hours at his job to pay for most of his own things, put in all
of the hours for club and school soccer teams and kept his grades up so college
coaches would consider him athletically and academically – and so they did.
While most of his teammates never had to consider any of those things, there
were some who had it worse than he did and we decided we want to help those
kids. We’ll be reaching out to the club in the coming months to see how we go
about providing scholarship money to the kids that are as passionate about
soccer as Keegan and maybe need some financial assistance and/or help with uniforms or travel expenses. We are relieved to have
an opportunity to be able to help others do something that was so much a part
of what helped build Keegan into the amazing young man he was and I’m hoping
maybe the kids we help will enjoy getting new Puma socks or a new pair of
cleats at Christmas – do you think they’ll mind if they’re addressed to
Blitzen? Just kidding. It is a phenomenal way for us, however – to keep Keegan
in our Christmases of tomorrow, by finding a new ‘Blitzen’ to shop for each
year!
