When a Doorbell's Ring Means Hope

Who was leaving these mysterious gifts on our doorstep each night?

- Charlotte Maya

The doorbell rang one midDecember evening. I frequently had unexpected visitors in those early days after my husband's death, sometimes bearing dinner, often with tears. But when my 6-year-old son opened the door, nobody was there.

Instead, on the doormat was a triangular box, a kit to make a gingerbread house, trimmed with a wide silver ribbon and a note that read "On the First Day of Christmas..." A mystery.

Sam had died suddenly that fall. Suicide. He'd had job stress, as most people do; chronic back pain, which he had managed since he was a teenager; financial concerns, like many parents who have young children. When he took his own life that clear blue October afternoon in Los Angeles, leaving me a widow and the single parent of our two boys, 6 and 8, I hadn't seen it coming.

My sons and I had already managed to navigate Halloween, which took on a grisly quality, and our first Thanksgiving without Daddy, the details of which escape me now but undoubtedly included a mashup of traditional American cuisine with Cuban and Jewish holiday favorites-a unifying holiday for my husband's Jewish family and my Christian one.

Still, I was dreading Christmas. How could December have arrived without my husband? I didn't turn up the holiday tunes or turn out the Christmas decorations. There were mornings when, after I walked Danny and Jason to their elementary school, I wanted to crawl back into bed and not emerge until they came home from college. If any homework got done or I remembered to feed the dog, I counted the day a win.

The next night, the doorbell rang again. Another package. Two snowman mugs, a packet for hot chocolate tucked inside each one, tied with the same silver ribbon and including the same white card, this one reading "On the Second Day of Christmas..." We didn't hear a car engine or receding footsteps or a muffled giggle. We didn't see anyone scurry away. Not a shape or a shadow.