By Megan Rogers 
“The first year is always the hardest.” I knew this phrase well by the time Mom passed. She was hardly the first loss I had faced, but hers cut more profound than the others. A piece of my heart legitimately split away from the remainder. I’ve heard one must walk through a year’s worth of special occasions and holidays during the grief process before the pain starts to subside.
Mom passed less than a week from Halloween, two weeks from Daddy’s 60th birthday, and four weeks from their wedding anniversary. I knew Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year would come hurling toward us, giving us no time to grieve from one to the next.
My grief was my own, but I didn’t realize how much hurt would compound seeing others grieve the same woman from their point of view. Daddy had lost his best friend. My husband lost his mother-in-law. My daughter had lost her Mimi. How do you even help a child navigate death? This layer was all new.
I anticipated the pain we would all feel over the Christmas holiday. If there was one thing my Mom loved, it was Christmas. She loved shopping for the grandbabies, decorating her house, Christmas movies, baking, and watching the Rockettes as they kicked off the holiday season on Thanksgiving Day.
Before my writing journey, I was a dance studio owner. In 2011, I pitched an idea about a dancing reindeer with rhinestone hooves. In the script, a reindeer named Rosie leaves the North Pole to audition for the Radio City Rockettes in New York. Mama fell in love with the storyline.
She persisted in nudging me each Christmas to “remember how good the Rosie recital was.” She would say, “You should make that a children’s book, and one day, I can read it to my grandbabies.”
That first Christmas without her was busy like all the ones with her. I finally slowed down enough on Christmas morning to face my grief before my 3-year-old woke to see what Santa left under the tree. With a cup of coffee, a fuzzy robe, and a picture of Mom in hand, I sat in my office upstairs and let the tears flood me.
My soft sob finally led into a deep moan. I stared out the window into the pasture. There was no snow, no frost, just a warm Georgia Christmas morning. Every tree branch, flower, and bush in sight was dead, which made me feel dead. I wanted to feel immense joy and anticipation as I watched my girl open her Disney princess dress and cotton candy-colored elephant. Minutes passed, and I found my mind dwelling on red shoes.
I frantically turned to my laptop and logged into my hard drive. “Rosie the Rhinestone,” I typed in the search bar. There it sat—my dance script from 2011. I dove in. Deleting dance titles and unnecessary characters, I began the reconstruction. My tears subsided, and I poured focus into the development of this little Reindeer.
“How nice would it be if this story could come to life for my children? My sister? My dad?” My thoughts started to perk up.
I knew if I could re-write Rosie from the stage and onto the page, I could find a tangible way for my mom to be with my family every Christmas. Rosie could embody a sense of tradition and memories for my children, something she always wanted. It was time to get pen to paper.
Rosie the Reindeer is a little doe who sees her family and friends training to work with Santa’s sleigh. It’s a traditional future that most reindeer long for. Rosie veers away from this because she fears heights, but on a deeper level, Rosie longs to dance with the North Pole Prancettes. Rosie faces challenges like heading to Prancette camp and finding enough courage to take the stage on audition day. Finally, Rosie finds that her hooves light up red and sparkly when dancing. She finds her shine by shining on stage that day.
The story of Rosie tells us that we each have a special knack. We must answer the call of our hearts, and our gifts will create an impact.
Now, through the story of Rosie, I can read a Christmas story to my babies every season that will give me a feeling of pride, knowing that my mother is woven into every page of “Rosie Finds Her Shine.”
I may have never danced as a Rockette, but I know I was my mama’s shining star on stage. Mama’s legacy lives on through the sparkly red hooves of a little reindeer named Rosie, and she will be with us and so many other families for every Christmas hereafter. Rosie helps me find my shine every single day.
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