“Look! Look! Look out my window! I can see a star!”

My daughter was pressed up against her bedroom windowpane, her brother by her side, following her motions and mimicking her enthusiasm.

I was folding laundry on her floor, my husband was out picking up Chinese Takeout and the kids were playing on the chairs by the window in her bedroom that faces the street.

She was actually shouting, almost jumping, with excitement.

In this moment, she made it easy to keep my pledge to “cherish the mundane”.

I am so infinitely  grateful for the outpouring of support after I opened up yesterday.

The public “likes” and comments were so meaningful to me, and I thank you to those who shared my words with others. I am humbled.

But I am also supremely grateful for the private messages I received, and the incredibly personal stories that people shared with me. I heard amazing tales of strength and survival from people whom I have known for years and some whom I have not (yet!) met. But, in one such email, when we were bonding over difficulties of the past, I wrote something about how it is really sucky that sometimes we have be so lost in the darkness in order to really see stars; but that when we do, it all seems worth it.

And then, a few hours later, my daughter and son stood side by side, on an ordinary Sunday night, after an ordinary Sunday (a time when, truth be told, I did not get out of my pajamas) and she reminded me of exactly of what I had been trying to convey earlier. Yesterday was hard. It had to revisit my darkest days. But tonight,

tonight, my daughter saw the brilliance of the light outside of her window,

and it was all worth it, indeed.