Little Things

I glance down at my two-month-old son and see you living in his eyes—big, almond-shaped, brown, tilting at the corners the way yours did just before you lit up a room with a smile. I lift my baby up and fold him against my chest, tucking the soft weight of him under my chin. I press my face into the duck-fluff of his hair and speak soft things, telling him about the person who would have loved him more than anyone else on earth. He coos against my collarbone, content. 

I realize the comfort is mostly for me.

The apartment is quiet except for the soft creak of the floorboards and the faint hum of the refrigerator. Outside, the afternoon light is already thinning. I shift my baby’s small body higher against my chest so his head rests in the hollow of my shoulder. His fingers curl and uncurl against my skin. For a moment I just stand there, breathing with him, letting the weight of him anchor me even as the past keeps pulling me back.

We walk the same small circuit again and again—kitchen, living room, office, kitchen—and grief is like the phantom that follows us step for step.

It’s my fault, isn’t it? I ask myself as we pace. 

Grief stays because I’m the one who refuses to allow regret to leave. Now they both slip through the pauses between conversations, and surface in the words of those who still remember. They linger in the quiet, renewing themselves with every memory, every photograph, every melody of your favorite Christmas song, every echo of your laughter. People tell me their sharp edge will dull over time, but I am terrified of that day—terrified you will think I have started to let you go.

We pass photos of you. The same ones, nothing new, yet I sigh every time. 

Will I ever stop sighing? I wonder. 

I hold my son closer and gently pat his back. He cranes his head to nuzzle deep into my neck. Somehow, he knows I need him, and I do.

I reflect on your last request—the last thing you asked of me after a life of giving me your everything. You called one ordinary winter afternoon and asked me to come up for Christmas in the snow-capped mountains of Spokane.

I told you yes. Then the practical questions began their relentless work: How would I afford the gas for the long drive? How could I miss those days of pay?

Work had slowed as snow fell quickly. One night, I was feeding horses in the freezing dark, breaking ice on water buckets with the heel of my boot, my breath hanging white in the air. I remember thinking how far Spokane felt from that frozen barn, how impossible the drive seemed when every dollar was already spoken for. The mountains between us felt so much taller than they really were.

Money stole my peace and priorities, and greed whispered in my ear. 

I called you back and said no.

You were disappointed. I know you were. I could hear it even as you tried to hide it behind a smile in your voice. “That’s okay, honey.”

I spent that Christmas alone. At least, I had told myself, I had made enough for the phone bill.

I would throw this phone into the sea for the rest of my life if it meant one last Christmas with you—curled by the fire, drinking hot cocoa, listening to your stories of film sets and world travels, watching the firs hold the snow outside the window, sharing the quiet joy and peace you had found in a life among them.

I cling tighter to my son. Tears blur my eyes as they wander my apartment. It’s tiny, yet it holds so much: your absence, his presence, and the small muscle of my heart that somehow survives both. 

I am exhausted. Day after day, when the baby cries I go to him, not only with my legs but with everything I have left, caught between gratitude and the ache of all that’s been lost.

Little things, I have to remind myself.

That’s what you taught me near the end: to hold onto the little things that quietly color a life more than the hilltop views. You said it was all about the daisies, the songbirds, and the beauty found along the path rather than whatever treasure is found at the end. Moments so ordinary they feel eternal. Small recollections we treasure and still somehow forget. Ordinary hours that outweigh even our deepest of sorrows. 

As I circle the apartment with my son against me, I remember the little things: rain when there is nowhere I need to be. Coffee’s dark, comforting smell rising in the morning. Warm sunlight softened by blinds. Birdsong just before the day begins. A hand that finds mine without being asked. A pen that writes the way it should. Five minutes in a clean house before another dish appears in the sink. The beautiful blue of the sky. Why do I hardly ever look up?

The hush of Christmas morning on the family couch. Battles that no longer matter. Joys that arrived anyway.

Being forgiven. Being seen. Being remembered.

I pause, because you told me I need to pause more. A tear slips down the tired landscape of my face. I wish I could tell you I’m sorry. I wish I could tell you that the little things you loved are the same ones that keep me standing now. Sometimes I weep for that trip I didn’t take. Often, I sit in remorse. But no matter what, I always remember your words. 

Somehow, in this small, looping life, you are still teaching me, and I finally understand what you meant all along.

My son we named after you glances up and smiles. There’s a bright glint in his eyes, like two thin crescent moons holding their light against the dark. 

I smile back, and I mean it. 

Because it’s all about the little things.

Just like you taught me, Dad.