Two Christmases ago, the great big sadness was Newtown. This Christmas, for me and our town, it’s Madeline.

Back in 2012, with the news from Sandy Hook ringing in my ears, I couldn’t hear a Christmas carol or stir cookie batter without breaking down into tears. (Our cookies were extra salty that year.)

What had happened was horrifying enough, but the fact that it happened at Christmastime….well, that made it unbearable somehow.

This Christmas I keep crying into the cookie dough when I think about Madeline.

If you’re local, you know this face and love it already.

Photo credit: Madeline Guarraia’s GoFundMe page

This face breaks my heart into a million pieces every time I see it. Every time. Even as I type right now. Waterworks.

Her name is Madeline Guarraia, a third-grader at my daughter’s school. Just last week, her parents took her to the doctor with headaches and got sucker-punched with the news that she has leukemia.

Again.

For four and a half long years of her little life, Madeline had fought cancer like a tenacious ninja warrior princess til she’d finally whipped it into remission in October 2013.

Her life was full of all these wonderfully normal things, like going to school and having best friends and taking dance lessons and drawing animal pictures.

I just found these pictures I’d taken of Madeline’s art class back in 2013. Happy. Normal. Drawing puppies.

Now a new cancer has returned to that little body that’s gone through so much, and “devastating” seems too small a word.

I don’t know this family personally. I just know their faces — especially Madeline’s, because who couldn’t see that smile and not squint from all the sunbeams?

But as part of our little school family, what this family is going through feels very very close. And to have a daughter that age…well, I can’t even let my mind go there.

So I pray a lot. And I wonder, what can I do? Really, actively, do to help. I mean, I’ve been blown away by all the cool things folks around here are dreaming up to do for this family.

Ms. Deeb rocks.           Photo credit: Lilllie B. Haynes Parents Facebook page.

• 3 to 6:30 pm. Monday, Dec. 15, at the Waterford Town Hall, 15 Rope Ferry Rd.
• 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 18 at Lillie B Haynes Elementary, 29 Society Rd., Niantic
• 4 to 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 19 at Oswegatchie Elementary School, 470 Boston Post Rd., in Waterford

If you can’t be there in person, an online drive has been set up for Madeline at the Rhode island Blood Center’s website. (Just use the code SWAB4MADELINE). Then there’s her GoFundMe page. You can follow her new Mad about Madeline Facebook page. And you can send her mail (P.S. She really likes tigers).

Madeline’s mom says there will be round after round of intensive chemo until it’s in remission. They’ll be in that hospital room ’til that happens. (For anyone who’s spent more than five minutes in a hospital room, that sounds horrendous – especially at Christmas. So they could definitely use some good cheer.)

Lucy made a tiger picture (Madeline’s favorite animal). You can send mail to plaster the walls of Madeline’s hospital room to: Yale New Haven Hospital, 20 York Street, New Haven, CT 06511 — 73 Hem-Oncology Unit

And of course, they can use all the prayers we can muster.

All I know is this: God is good. All the time.

Madeline must know that too, because despite her heartbreaking circumstances, she asked to be baptized in her hospital room yesterday.

What a precious girl. I don’t even know her, but I feel like I’d give her my right arm if she needed it.

Photo credit: Guarraia family from the Mad about Madeline Facebook page

At Christmastime, news like this can sure take the wind out of our sails — and the Fa La La La La out of our hall decking.

But then again, Christmas is a time of miracles– like that humdinger of a miracle that lit up the whole world 2,000 years ago.

I’m praying for another one this Christmas.

And this one’s got Madeline’s name all over it.

Roar, Madeline. ROAR.