This is an I-Heart podcast.

And we continue with our American stories.

Our next story comes to us from Tracy Grant. Grant is the deputy managing editor at the

Washington Post. She is also the author of the essay that appeared in the post. I was my husband's

caregiver as he was dying of cancer. It was the best seven months of my life. Here's Tracy to share her story with us.

Almost 12 years ago, my world, as I knew it, ended.

My husband of 19 years, the father of my two sons, was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Over the course of seven months, Bill went from beating me silly on the tennis court

to needing my health to go to the bathroom and bathe.

It was the best seven months of my life.

Maybe I don't actually mean that, but it was certainly the time when I felt most alive.

I had lived 42 years before I heard the phrases,

We have a problem.

Multiple metastases, on the brain, probably in the lung as well.

I had become a respected professional, a responsible and I hope beloved parent, but I had yet

to discover the reason I was put on this earth.

During those seven months, I came to understand that whatever else I did in my life,

nothing would matter more than this, even if I didn't really understand what this was.

For me, there were no more bad days.

I discovered that the petty day-in, day-out grievances of an irksome co-worker,

a child with the sniffles, or a flat tire, pale in comparison

to the beauty of spontaneous laughter, the night sky, the smells of a bakery.

...