Nine days before Christmas and she didn't wake up from her nap.

Emily was only two years old, and she couldn't tell us how bad she really felt, or describe what it was that was hurting her. Sara put her down to sleep, hoping the low-grade fever and general fussy-ness would find relief in rest. She slept well.

Too well.

Five hours later she was hot to the touch and unresponsive to our efforts to wake her. She had been resting quietly to outward appearances, but a battle was raging on the inside.

The paramedics who responded to my 911 call were generous and kind, caring for little Emily, gently prying her from Sara's arms as she tried to cling to her daughter as any panicked mother would. They handled her like a porcelain doll. So careful.

The female paramedic – tiny in her own right, with dark hair and Asian features – shielded Emily's body from our view as they first inserted the IV. She carried her to the waiting ambulance, rather than putting her tiny body on the usual transport stretcher.

Little Emily never opened her eyes. Never awoke to see the worried faces of her mother and father leaning over her. Never saw the walls of the cold, sanitized emergency room or the dimly lit critical care unit. Never looked down to see the thin, straw-like tube and needle in her arm, or the one they later put down her throat to help her breath. She never had to see the tears in Sara's eyes, or hear the uncontrollable wailing when the heat monitor line went flat.

She didn't have to see the things I saw. These are little blessings, I realize.

*****

I removed the presents from under the tree as Sara took a drug-aided nap. We had both focused our gift purchases almost exclusively on Emily, so there were only two presents left: A gift certificate for a facial and massage I had purchased for Sara at the day spa she used to go to before Emily arrived, and a rectangular box for me which likely held a new dress shirt and tie.

The Christmas Crèche was on a shelf of the entertainment center, up high enough that Emily's two-year-old, grasping hands couldn't reach. I wasn't paying attention and bumped one of the shepherds, which in turn knocked one of the sheep off, onto the hardwood. The sheep's head broke off at the neck, and both pieces bounced up like a ball, then fell back to the floor. The sheep's body tumbled to a stop near the recliner, standing up on its four legs as if it were placed there, except it was headless. The head rolled in a wide arc, circling back to rest against the decapitated body.

“And I saw a vision, of a lamb, standing as if slain.”

I picked up the sheep, intending to super-glue the head back on. I looked at Mary, gazing down at the baby Jesus, in adoration of the gift she had been given, not unlike how Sara so often watched over Emily. Sara watched her child stop breathing in a cold, white hospital room, surrounded by people who were rooting for her to live. Mary watched her child stop breathing, hanging naked and humiliated in a public place, while people cheered his execution.

These are little blessings, I realize.

*****

Emily will never know the rejection of the “cool kids” at school, never have her heart broken by a boy, never have to watch her parents lose their eyesight, their mobility, their ability to recognize her. She'll never grow into a body destined to fail her.

She will never have to experience war, or the death of a loved one, or the betrayal of a supposed friend.

She never had a reason to learn what the word “hate” means.

These are little blessings.

*****

Sara was still asleep when I checked on her. She was laying in the “big girl” bed that has been in Emily's room since we repainted and redecorated it in the months before her birth. Sara slept in that bed some nights, unable to leave Emily's side. Emily was just getting big enough to consider moving her to that bed.

I gathered the garbage sack full of presents and loaded them into the car. I drove over to the volunteer fire station where a young man helped me put them into a collection barrel. I remembered him serving me pancakes at a fund raiser for a new fire truck last fall. He promised me the toys will go to a needy home. He doesn't have to ask any details. He knows my story. He knows where the toys came from. He knows of a little girl who would really appreciate the gifts, he tells me.

These are the little blessings.