Trigger warning: Mentioning of suicide.

Written by Linneagb.

It felt like a thousand years had passed since that overdose, that ambulance ride. All of those nights that I didn't ever know if I was going to make it through. When all the nights felt endlessly long and every second like a year.

Now… Here I was! A morning of Christmas day with a new person in my arms…

She didn't have anything as of belongings just yet. Not even a name. But she did have my heart…

"It feels as if I've been waiting for you my whole life." I whispered, while my newborn daughter seemed deeply asleep, just like Seth sitting in a chair right by the bed with metal banisters, and he seemed asleep himself. "…All of those things I went through… How could you ever imagine them? They're all what led me here today and you're my little piece of heaven… my and da-da's huge piece of perfect. And you're the reason I lived through… everything! I just didn't know it yet."

And how could I ever have? How could I ever have known love like this?

This was so much bigger than anything else I could have imagined.

All of those pills I had taken once, all of those times I had wished I just slipped away and regretted calling for an ambulance. After the A and E and the hospital, all of that zoning in and out of sleep. I couldn't even drink a sip of water without it coming back up for days.

I just couldn't imagine how things would have ended if I would have succeeded with what I was trying to do…

The thought only, despite feeling the heaviness of my daughter in my arms for half a second, I was back where I had had those pills in front of me, about to swallow the first and here and now I gasped so loudly Seth flinched awake.

"What? What? Tracy? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." I tried but Seth had already gotten up and was trying to take our daughter from me. "No. No. I want to hold on. I want to hold on forever." He sunk down back towards the same chair. "I was just thinking…" It was like my vision was locked down onto her slightly, slightly tanned skin and thatch of dark hair. "….Future seems like a nice place all of a sudden. How couldn't it be without her here? My joy? Happiness? Hope? There's no way we'll know what'll be tomorrow. But it doesn't matter as long as she'll be here."

Seth didn't answer for what felt like a long while. He had just lied one of his fingers in her open palm and as some sort of reflex in her sleep she had wrapped her whole, big palm around it.

"Ten little fingers…" Seth mumbled to himself before he started talking to me again. "Would you like to call her one of those names? Joy or Hope or Faith?"

Ten little fingers and ten little toes… a name didn't seem important. There didn't seem anything else could be more important than her heart beating with mine.

"No" I had hesitated for just a second- I knew that's not what I wanted. "I don't want a name like that. I don't want a name that reminds us of… everything! But maybe we could make that her middle name?"

Although I did have two very important people, she needed her middle name after…

If I hadn't known any better I would have expected that Seth had fallen asleep where he sat. Or I would almost have expected that I had fallen asleep myself. The only way I knew I wasn't asleep and dreaming was that I could hear someone- as far, far, far away, a choir singing Christmas songs.

They did sound so far away. Just like even Christmas did in itself. I looked around the white hospital room, one wouldn't be allowed way too many- or any Christmas ornaments in here. Due to the fire hazard, I had heard. But couldn't they at least have put a candle stick in the window or some… some….

"Holly?" I almost whispered, when I suddenly thought of almost everything that came with Christmas ornaments. "Holly?" I could feel new tears rising in my eyes while I looked down on my baby. "Is that your name? Holly?" I suddenly shrieked it out loud. I just couldn't help it. "Seth? " He had, after the waken night, once again been, as good as asleep where he sat. Now he shot up and seemed alert. "I think I found it…. Holly… I think her name is Holly. Holly Hope… that doesn't sound too bad? Does it?"

"It sounds perfect." Seth stroke her little hand and laid his big finger in Holly's little hand. "Hello Holly. It's da-da… I can't wait to hear you call me that."

"No." I whispered. "No can't wait's." I couldn't help but say. "Let's just hold onto now. Okay? Only now!"

I didn't know why it suddenly was so important to me. But it was, and I wanted to suck in every moment as it came and not wait

"Okay… I can do that. For… Holl…"

The door suddenly opened and Cam and Mike both came in, maybe I should have been confused. Mike should be at the dumping ground for Christmas day. But right now I couldn't help but feel everything at once. And it wouldn't have surprised me in the slightest if Cam would have fallen right inside the door and Mike stumbled so they both fell flat on this hospital floor. But somehow, still on their feet- with a big bouquet of Christmasy flowers and a group of pink balloons of Cam's. Then more pink balloons and the biggest pink teddy bear I had seen in my life that Mike was holding onto, they stumbled into the room while Cam's frizzy hair reminded me that this morning hadn't quite turned into day yet.

Hadn't it been hours and hours and hours? Hadn't I had my baby in my arms for days?

"Hello, you two." I said, barely more than whispered as if talking any louder would break the sleeping bundle in my arms. "It… We… Good morning… I…. We…. It happened a bit fast."

"And a bit early." Cam smiled slightly and found somewhere- I barely knew where for what she had bought. "I should have known… Christmas day! Hello…" She got some alcogel from a hanger on the wall and then waved her hands in the air to dry while Mike and Seth had to work together to find somewhere for the teddy bear. "Welcome to the world baby."

I was still refusing to let go of my little girl, but I could move at least to show her- to Cam, to Mike, to the whole world. Cam smiled slightly. It was as if she too worried if she moved too fast or too much she'd end up breaking Holly.

Mike went to clean his hands too, but despite already having seen Cam just doing the same that seemed like way too much of a normal and common thing to do. Should people still have to do it with everything that was going on?

"Hello…" Mike waited for his hands to dry, then came over and slightly held out his finger so that, in her sleep Holly wrapped her whole hand around it. "…I'm Mike. And I can feel myself being wrapped around your little finger… I mean it. You'll be able to make me give you anything you want…"

"Say hello to your grandma…" I told Holly as if she understood me speaking or even heard. "…And… This might not be… anything like any other family anyone has ever known. We'll be the best family you could ever hope for. Do you hear that?"

"I don't think she'll have to hear it." Cam told her, while Holly had grabbed Mike's fingers with both of her small hands, all of her ten fingers and was sucking the top. "We'll show her… won't we? Won't we Tracy?" I could do nothing else than nod- for every minute. "Won't we baby?"

Hearing that final word it reminded me of something. Yet I wanted to shout it all to the whole world.

"Your name isn't baby. Your name is Holly. Holly Hope Michaela Camilla Beaker… that's quite long isn't it? Is it too long?"

I looked up and around the room, it was still like all of me was shaking. Holly laid in my arms but no way was I ever letting her go now. Not now from my arms. Not ever from my heart.

I regretted asking that in the same moment it had escaped my mouth. Of course, if Seth didn't want it we'd be going through it together and we would decide on something else together. But it already sounded so right so I wasn't certain I would ever be able to change it.

"It sounds perfect." Seth mumbled and I could see the way Mike and Cam were looking at each other when I spoke her full name. "It takes a Beaker girl… now to be born a day like this… And of course you will be knowing about it… I wonder what you'll be thinking about it. Maybe you'll like it. And maybe you won't. Maybe you'd like to celebrate in the middle of the summer and want no one to remind you of your actual birthday… And any time. Any birthday… Merry Christmas everyone."

For every year that had passed since what I had done. Was it three, four, five or even more years ago? Was it a thousand? Either way. Christmas was always reminding me of another year passing by. And now here she was- maybe I had known all along, that even though she had been due to be born in mid-January, Holly would. Like Seth had just said be born on a date important for so many- millions and millions of different people. Of different traditions and religions.

"Merry Christmas." I whispered down to the bundle of love I held in my arms. "And happy birthday."

Would people know that for the five people in this hospital room today, Christmas was more important than to anyone else? Would they know that after this, it was the way it was going to be? Now, today, next year and then forever?

Random fact

When writing one of those last pieces. That maybe Holly will like to celebrate some other day, maybe in the middle of the summer. Reminded me of when we were quite young and my brother (born in February) wanted to be like me (born in June) and have his birthday and birthday celebrations during the summer.