She had this childish belief that bad things simply weren’t allowed to happen at Christmas, as it was her favorite holiday, and she simply loved it. She wasn’t the type who dragged out the tree the moment Halloween ended, but she truly believed the season carried its own kind of softness, comfort, love, warmth, and little miracles, until the previous year.
On December 20th of that year, she received a phone call she had been expecting for months. One of her oldest friend’s mothers had been diagnosed with cancer nearly four years ago. The doctors told her she had six months, but the woman had fought her way far past that because of her determination. By September, although her body wasn’t on her side as it had begun to fail, everyone got the idea that the worst was yet to come.. After losing her own father, she had made it her mission to support anyone she knew who was losing a parent; she knew how it felt to lose someone that dear to one. She believed painful experiences were meaningful when they allowed her to help someone else. So she promised her friend she would fly to Tennessee the moment her mother passed away.
But a last-minute flight five days before Christmas cost more than she could manage. When she came home from work that afternoon, she felt a sense of defeat. She desperately wanted to be by her friend’s side, keep her promise, but she wasn’t able to afford the trip. Her mother lived just down the road, barely more than a mile away, and the two spent most days together running their family business. That evening was no different as her mother came over after work to spend time with Sawyer, her little boy. They were all in the kitchen when everything changed in the blink of an eye. Sawyer looked up, then collapsed, seizing violently. It wasn’t his first seizure, but the last time it had happened, he’d had a high fever. The pediatrician had diagnosed it as a simple febrile seizure, a common one, usually harmless. But this time there was no fever. No warning.
She called 911 while her mother tried to keep Sawyer safe. By the time paramedics arrived, the seizure had stopped, and they gave her the option to go by ambulance or drive. They chose to drive. At the hospital, Sawyer had two more short seizures. The doctor insisted they were probably still febrile, despite having no symptoms, and he was discharged just before 10:30 p.m.although she wasn’t satisfied with the assessments, she didn’t know she could do. She only wanted her baby to be okay, and the doctor seemed confident.
At home, she and her husband kept Sawyer in their bed, too shaken to leave him alone. Around 12:30 a.m., he seized again. This time, he didn’t come out of it. Minutes passed, they were terrifyingly endless, seventeen minutes until the seizure. Paramedics gave him emergency medication, and she rode with him in the ambulance, refusing to be separated from her child. People explained that parents were expected to protect their children, and she had felt powerless, able only to whisper reassurances and tell him how deeply he was loved.
When she got back to the hospital, the doctor who had dismissed them earlier asked why they had come back. She recalled feeling a surge of anger, believing that if he had taken the first seizures seriously, Sawyer might not have ended up in this pain, such a prolonged episode. The doctor left quickly, possibly sensing her frustration. Sawyer experienced additional seizures before a neurologist ordered a CT scan, MRI, EEG, and IV anticonvulsants. She later recalled that seeing her two-year-old attached to so many needles and machines had been agonizing, and that even a year later, the memory continued to haunt her.
They were discharged on December 23rd with medication, but she got no explanations. She hoped Christmas might still be peaceful, but on Christmas Eve, her sister called her. She told her someone very close to her had died suddenly. It felt like blow after blow. She questioned everything, wondering why her family seemed to be drowning in loss. But eventually she realized the truth: these things weren’t happening to her. Sometimes bad things simply happened, and all she could control was how she responded. Her son needed strength, not despair and sadness. Her sister needed support, not self-pity.
Christmas Day was quieter than usual. There were no matching pajamas, no silly photos, no holiday glow. But there were small pockets of joy as Sawyer smiled as he opened gifts, her sister managing her first smile in a day. Even in the heaviness, the spirit of Christmas still flickered. Almost a year later, Sawyer was still free of seizures. His parents were getting ready to take him off his medicine and felt hopeful about the future. She had learned an important lesson that life would always have hard times, but people were stronger than they thought. Even in the most challenging moments, there was always something to hold on to.
