Lucas burst into tears.
Before I could even move, Cole pulled him into his arms and held him tightly. I saw Cole’s own eyes glisten as he hugged him.
I turned toward Geeta.
She stood near the doorway, her eyes shining with tears.
My own emotions finally overflowed.I picked Emma up into my arms and stepped toward them, wrapping my arms around both Cole and Lucas. Geeta joined us, and the five of us were tangled together in a tight group hug filled with laughter, tears, and overwhelming love.
“Milo seems like the perfect name,” Cole said after a moment, glancing at me.
“Perfect,” I said, smiling. “I think it’s just perfect.”
Later that night,I stood quietly near the doorway, watching Cole and the children.
Lucas laughed as Milo chased a toy across the floor, while Emma clapped excitedly beside them. Cole lay stretched out on the carpet, pretending to bark back at the dog as the children squealed with delight.
I smiled as I watched them.
And then something struck me so hard it felt like being hit by a speeding bus.
I had seen this before—not this exact moment, but something eerily similar.
My mind raced back to the hospital years earlier, when I had been fighting for my life during my heart surgery. In that strange state between consciousness and darkness, I had seen faces.
A man’s face.
Cole’s face—exactly the way he looked right now.
My gaze shifted slowly to Emma, and my heart skipped again.
I had seen her face too, long before she had been born—before she had even existed.
The memory flickered through my mind like fragments of a dream: a funeral… and a wedding.
Had those been signs too? Signs of what? Could the funeral have been Patty’s funeral?
I tried to recall the details of the vision, but the memory remained blurred and distant. And the wedding—was it mine, or was it my children’s? The questions swirled through my mind, but the answers refused to surface.
Finally, I shook the thoughts away.
Tonight was not a night for questions.
It was a night for happiness, for love, and for family.
Smiling, I walked over and sat down on the floor beside them, joining Cole and the children as Oreo and the newest member of our family, Milo, bounced happily between us.
The holidaysthat year were filled with love and family, and as the year slowly drew to a close, I found myself walking through those days in unusually high spirits. Every morning when I woke up beside Cole and every evening when I watched the children laughing with him in the living room, I felt overwhelmed with gratitude.
I had so much to be thankful for.
The year had brought me a life I had once been too afraid to hope for.
Liam’s family came over for Christmas, filling the house with cheerful noise and the chaotic energy that always seemed to follow large family gatherings. Jack and Maureen joined us as well, and by the time evening arrived, every corner of the house was alive with laughter, the smell of food, and the constant rustle of wrapping paper.
Lucas tore into his presents with excitement while Emma clapped and squeaked happily every time someone opened another gift. Cole sat on the floor with them, helping Emma unwrap one toy after another while Milo and Oreo ran excitedly through the room as if they were just as involved in the celebration as the rest of us.
We sang Christmas carols together, our voices blending imperfectly but joyfully as the lights of the Christmas tree flickered in the background. The children eventually grew sleepy, and we bundled them into coats before heading to church together to celebrate the birth of Christ.
