Some time ago, I came upon a blog about Thomas Bickle, who was discovered to have a brain tumor when he was around six months old. I think I have been reading about him for seven months now, and late last fall read his mother’s entry that the cancer was winning. She said they were going to enjoy the time between the discontinuation of chemo and the appearance of symptoms from the growing mass in his head. She said they probably wouldn’t blog much during “this cold season.”

A couple of days after I read this, we put up our outside Christmas lights while the weather was favorable and it popped into my head that these lights – red and white and floating on air in the darkness – were Thomas Bickle’s lights. Somehow they were sending a message for him and about him. But now, it is nearing the time to turn them off and take them down . . . and I hadn’t thought about that.