Gratitude Through Difficult Memories

Finding tenderness in the hardest memories isn’t about silver linings. When memories cut deep, it’s tempting to look away. But sometimes, buried in those moments are gifts too big to ignore.

Yesterday, before heading out to ride an ATV with my son in the Rockies at 9,000 feet, I thought I knew what gratitude would look like.

I expected it to be about the breathtaking views, the thrill of adventure, the joy of sharing these beautiful things with him. And yes, all of that was there. But what caught me completely off guard was a memory I didn’t expect to touch again.

At a peak in the Purcell Mountains, we came across a restored blacksmith’s cabin. We stopped for hot chocolate and cider, taking in the endless summit. On the way down, I noticed a patches of yellow flowers along the trail. Suddenly, the whole picture came flooding back, like puzzle pieces finding themselves across space and time, overwhelming me to the point of tears, stinging my eyes behind dusty goggles. Nobody noticed but me.

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A Field I Once Carried

When my son Danny was alive, I used a visualization to stay calm for him during his most difficult moments. I always believed that my energy could be his energy; that if I could remain steady, he could feel it too. It worked for us, and I leaned into this visualization a lot.

My safe place was a field of yellow flowers in a wide mountain meadow. I could see, feel and touch everything in this visualization. In that field, surrounded by beauty and quiet, we were safe.

On the last night of his life — though I didn’t know it would be his last — Danny was unsettled, and I held him close. Bouncing him gently, I whispered to him about the yellow flowers, about a horse carrying him through the meadow toward a cabin where his whole family was waiting. Warmth, love, safety. I wanted him to feel all of that through me. It’s painfully ironic, but powerfully comforting that I got to tell him about the field of yellow flowers before he left this earth.

After Danny died, the visualization disappeared. It was gone, almost like it belonged to him. I never returned to that field of flowers in my mind again.

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When Two Worlds Touched

When I found myself suddenly immersed in that memory on the side of a mountain, the flowers right in front of me, the cabin behind me, and my living son holding onto the ATV with me, it was like the two worlds touched.

And the emotion that washed over me wasn’t grief, but a tsunami of gratitude.

Gratitude that I had been able to give Danny that gift of calm. Gratitude that I could feel his presence again in something as small as wildflowers. Gratitude that the goodness of that moment didn’t vanish, but could still ripple through me, and now into an experience with my living son, and into anyone else lucky enough to feel its warmth secondhand.

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Quiet Gratitude

Gratitude doesn’t have to be big, or said out loud. It doesn’t need to be hashtagged, journaled, or printed on a mug.

It really can live quietly, privately. I’m sharing mine, so that maybe you can discovers yours. Remember, sometimes, it will sneak up in ways you could never plan.

For me, it was a cabin and a patch of yellow flowers.

And I hope, for any of you reading this, that in your own way, in your own life… you get to feel it too.

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PS: If this story resonated with you, one of the most meaningful ways you can support it is by sharing it. A simple act of passing this along might be the thing that makes someone in the bereavement community feel less alone. The private messages I’ve received over time have reminded me how much even one story, one connection, can matter. Thank you for being part of that ripple :)