tiny moments

Mom called up from downstairs, “Moo Moo, are you awake?”
“Yeah,” I said, staring out the window at the way the sun turned the clouds gold.
“Look how cool the sky looks.”

Tiny moments like these. I hold onto them, trying to stop time and make them last longer. Last year I almost lost her completely to drugs. Two episodes of cardiac arrest, a 5-day coma, and a year later we celebrated her one year sober anniversary.

When she was using, the moments with her were fleeting. I was forever chasing after them between her constant coming and going. But now, we’ve been gifted millions of tiny moments and I am grateful for every single one. The way she leaves me love notes on the fridge and how she hugs me in the in-between moments when I’m doing mundane tasks like washing the dishes or putting groceries away and when she folds my clothes in perfect rectangles so I don’t have to do it and the easy way she tells me she loves me all throughout the day and the way she tells me how much she believes in me and never holds back a kind thought and how she wants to share all the tiny moments with me like how pretty the sky is, the red bird in the branches of the black walnut tree, and how the mist hangs in the mountains. I never thought I’d get moments like these with her but I never gave up fighting for her and for us and now we have everything.

We are everything.

It took us thirty-four years to get here, but we finally made it.

Don’t give up on the ones you love. If your relationships are struggling, try not to miss the small moments. Everyone shows love differently and most of the time it shows up in the small things. Tiny gifts. They’re often there if you look for them.