Grief…it’s not what you expect

Dave has been gone for eight months. I have been chugging along, doing my regular stuff: I made 2 cakes for Easter; I finally got the car in for a long needed service; I pulled weeds and watered; along with other “regular” stuff. The big days are hard, and we expect them to be hard: Thanksgiving, Christmas, Anniversary, but what we don’t expect is the effect that the “little” things will have. Every Easter for 50 years, Dave has given me a chocolate Easter bunny from See’s. It would appear on my nightstand sometime before morning, just as if the Easter bunny had brought it. He would come in in the morning, full of joy, saying it was the “enter correct number here” year that he had delivered a bunny. He was so proud that he would remember this little thing. It didn’t matter that much to me, but it mattered so much to him. I realized this morning that there would be no Easter bunny on my bedside table tomorrow morning. I never thought to take a photo of the bunny and I never thought of writing a story about the tradition, and now it’s gone. It’s the little things that get you, people--the very little things. His birthday is in a couple of weeks…that’s a biggie…wonder how I’ll handle that one.