In my new life in Utah, I commute to work. The entire drive I am fortunate to have beautiful, jagged rocky mountains to look at. Last year, my commute was my time to have a few minutes of silence every day–I couldn’t listen to the radio because most of the songs made me cry. And at that time, not crying when I was alone was hard enough, I didn’t need any extra help! lol. In 2009, my commute was also my time to try NOT to think about what had become my life.

Three weeks into my new life in Utah, I read a story about a pioneer man who lost his wife coming across the plains. He buried her, and by that night had also lost his infant son. He walked back to his wife’s grave, dug her up and buried the baby with her, and then returned to the wagon train he was traveling with. He quit writing in his journal for awhile, but when he picked up again, he wrote only, “Still Walking.”

That’s how I felt.

I didn’t have the time, energy, or opportunity to write about my life. I was hardly able to face what had become of my life. I wasn’t sure why it was my new life. I struggled with my new life. And because I’d been taught “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all,” I didn’t say anything. I was so overwhelmed, I didn’t have the time to write anyway.

If I had written, I would have recorded that in the beginning of my new life as a single mother, I HATED leaving my children and going to work each day. I was filled with grief for the many things I had lost and for what my innocent children had been put through. It took all of my will to get up every day and go to work, come home, and do everything for the family.

I also had a moment or two, I admit, of thinking (while I commuted) “If this is the rest of my life, if THIS is what I have to look forward to for the next 40-60 years, I don’t think I want it.” Sometimes my optimism was…not optimism! As I drove, my mental “wallowing” was equivalent to a pig stuck in muck in the barnyard. I knew it. I didn’t want to be that, but sometimes I just couldn’t help myself. In the beginning, I couldn’t imagine ever healing, ever feeling “whole” again or ever being o.k. with any part of my life. I just felt like I had to live my new life and give the appearance that things were good and I was happy for the sake of my children.

I think, or at least I hope, that most of those feelings I wallowed in were normal. In my experience, it was part of the process of healing and overcoming. The trick, though, is to not allow yourself to get stuck in the “mental muck” for too long; to not allow yourself to wallow too deep. Because, “They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” (Andy Warhol)

He’s right.

So I hoped for better days ahead. I didn’t know how long it would take them to arrive, but I knew I had to hang on until they did. I had to hope that, as my mom used to say, “this too, shall pass.” I had to hope that I would feel comfort and peace, that I would be able to carry on just one more day. I had to hope that I’d be able to have fun with my children again. (We’d all grieved so much, I felt we needed FUN! I knew I needed to set a good example of fun for my children, I just felt so heavy in my heart I didn’t know how I would be able to do that, too.)

And in addition to hope, I had to do what I could to look for the good and count the blessings I still had. I had to work to create a life I could be happy with and I had to let go of the old one. There was still a good life to be lived. A very different life from the life I’d had or imagined as my future, but it was still good.

“Difficult times have helped me understand better than before how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever.” (Isak Dinesen)

Somewhere along I-15, and with time, by the fall of 2009 I noticed I was crying less and then eventually not crying at all. There isn’t a lot to cry about anymore. In fact, there may not be anything left to cry about. I can’t remember the last time I cried.

My mom was right. Again.

Things DO pass. Time DOES heal. You just have to let things and time work their magic. And you have to use the things you are “blessed” with, to make you a better person than you would otherwise have been. Difficult times have helped me realize that, again, and so much more.