The Moments I Miss Him Most
Originally written on November 20, 2025.
5:44 pm. The work day comes to a close. It’s dark and cold. A real late November type of evening. Not like the abnormal weather we’ve been having. I was just thinking to myself that I worked what felt like a real full day, for the first time in a while. I closed my laptop and Nora immediately jumped off the bed and ran to me. It’s the sound and signal. She knows I’m done working. I laugh and smile. She’s such an angel.
I walk to the kitchen to get her dinner.
My heart immediately sinks.
These are the moments I always miss him most.
It’s the end of the day, the world becomes quiet and I feel his void.
It’s the “what do you want to do for dinner” conversation that we will never again get to have.
The drink from the bar he bought me for my birthday when we first met, that matches the beautiful mountain bar holder he brought into my home when we moved in. It’s that drink I’ll pour and drink alone. He’d be making a whiskey and coke. Though he probably would’ve already had one waiting for me to finish up work. He maybe would’ve even brought a glass of wine to my desk, helping me close out the day.
It’s the music playing in the kitchen as we’d cook a meal together, and he’d swing me around and throw in a dip in our little tiny space.
It’s the dishes he’d do when we were wrapping up dinner, this was always his job and he took pride in it.
It’s the settling in on the couch to watch football, maybe with the fire on to warm us up. The can you take Nora out for her last potty" of the night conversation.
The settling into bed after the nightly routine. Him brushing your teeth turning around to look at me sitting in bed, and he’d smile, his eyes tell me “I love you Lauren”. Him grabbing his long sleeve shirt off the hanger to get in something cozy for bed, it’s likely one of the avalanche brand, he loved how soft those were.
It’s these moments.
When the world closes down and everyone goes home to their families, the “have a good evening” messages, then I go out to the empty living room. The quiet. The dark. The place he’s never coming back to. The I miss you creeps in and suddenly a half decent day becomes another day of sadness. My body collapses, I sob hysterically, the tears run down my face, Nora comes to kiss me, “mom I miss him too”. my heart aches deeply for a life that is no longer here, a life that is no longer possible. There is no avoiding the void he’s left, because a Thursday night, even a boring and mundane one, was so full of life and love, when he was here.
