A Homecoming Christmas.

I may have mentioned on Monday about a little something special my husband did for me this Christmas. I just didn't tell you what it was. But I'm about to.

Because once in a while a husband really, really gets it right.

Not all the time, mind you. There was, as I have mentioned before, the "pancho" incident of 2004. There was the time he bought me a low-cal/low-fat cookbook for Mother's Day (Uh, hello? Offensive!) . And more times than not his gifts have come with batteries and the need for an electrical outlet.

But not this time, this time he did good.

Because this Christmas, my sweet Attorney General, made sure I spent Christmas with all my family. Every little one of them.

He brought Elisha to me.

Just before Christmas, because he is a kid at heart and can't stand for a good surprise to be held in for over 24 hours (and I love that about him) he grabbed my hand and drug me to the car. He said he wanted to show me something and just couldn't wait another minute. And with all the expectations in the world to see that a neighbor had bought a new car - or a new house was going up down the street - or someone close by was smoking some kind of special meat - I jumped in the car so he could take me to what he was so excited about.

Only he drove me to a cemetery.

And showed me the fresh dirt. Turned over and packed down. With the headstone we had created only 5 years ago that very month. And beneath it was our boy.

And within seconds my knees hit the earth that only moments before I had been standing on. And I began to cry. Because everyone, absolutely everyone, was now home.

I did not know he was doing this. I probably would have been a wreck had I known. The questions of the "how" and "when" and "will they" and "are they" would have haunted me every second, so wisely, he chose to leave me out of it. And do it himself. He made the calls, he made the arrangements and he took my hand and lead me out to where I finally felt peace - such peace.

To make it all the more sweeter Elisha isn't in a plot all by himself. He is sharing one, with my little brother Christopher; their two caskets barely make up the full length of one adult and so there, in the same sweet ground as my brother, lay my son. Behind him is my Pawpaw and to the left of him, my uncle Donald.

All of them are buried in a small, country cemetery less than 2 miles from my home with some of my family and some very special friends buried amongst them. And as I turned to leave that evening, holding my sweet husbands hand, I couldn't help but feel that somewhere in Tennessee there were ships burning.

Not that I don't love Tennessee, oh how I do. But finally, it felt as if I could burn the ships that were holding me down there. Because a year or two or three or a hundred can go by in another place, but until a mother has all her babies home, something just doesn't feel right.

And so that night, as we drove back home, I thought about the ships. And in my minds eye I watched them burn. And I thought to myself, "We're here now. We are all here. We are in Texas now, every one of us. I have both of my hands and both of my feet and all of my heart. Right here. In this Texas earth."

And then I kissed the AG. For a really long time.