Every now and then something pops into my Facebook feed that stops me in my tracks. Yesterday, someone shared a link with a site called Our Small Moments.
The author, Courtney, describes herself as “a wife, mother, grad student, photographer, writer, and teacher, trying to live now, figuring out each day as it comes. Every time I try to figure out the future, or my purpose in this life, I find out I have it horribly wrong. Just as I returned to work, my husband, the love of my life was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. We are fighting this fight, while raising our kids, dealing with high functioning autism, and keeping our dreams alive. ”
Her beloved husband has just died. She confesses: “Yes, I knew my husband had cancer. About a month ago, I knew accepted it was terminal. However, I thought we had more time.”
And now she’s processing her grief that he’s gone. Her latest blog post is a heartbreaker. It’s called “It’s the little things”.
She writes:
It’s the little things I miss the most, not the big things.
Today, the kids and I were walking into the grocery store and I saw a mail truck. I stopped and stared. My heart hurt, and felt like it was going to explode from my chest. In that moment, I MISSED him. He loved his job, despite his math degree. He LOVED being a mailman and I missed that about him.
The other day, I tried to find the kids’ birth certificates. Where were they? I missed being able to ask him, “What on Earth did you do with them? Where are they???” (I found a set of different ones, but I still wonder, where the other ones are.)
Yesterday, I was reminded that I am not sure where we hid “THE ELF” after the last holiday season. You all know what I am talking about. I have a few months to find him, or buy a new one, but I no longer have anyone to remind me where he is hiding. ”What did you do with him after last Christmas? Do you remember, because I sure don’t.”
There are so many things I want to ask you, or tell him, but he is gone.
And I just wanted to weep buckets for her (and selfishly for myself). Because I think we forget sometimes how important those little things are to us. How precious life is. How wonderful it is to have our family around us. How lucky we are.
What little things are you feeling grateful for today?
housegoeshome 
It’s always good to get this sort of reality check. How heartbreaking. I caught myself complaining this morning about not having enough time to get a coffee with a friend before going to the gym – talk about your first world problem! As the words fell out of my mouth I was simultaneously thinking how lucky I was if this was ALL I had to complain about today! Thanks for sharing this.
I know, poor, poor woman.
Heartbreaking. Truly heartbreaking. I’ve been trying to look on the positive side of life lately and have surrounded the house with little sayings. The one of the fridge says “Every thought is a seed. If you plant crab apples don’t count on havesting golden delicious”. I’ve been trying to watch my thoughts, especially the ones about the hardship we have because our cleaner took a 2 month holiday over the European summer….