It Will Get Better... It Has To 

This is not my first time at the Hard-Knocks Class. I had a miscarriage two years into my marriage, and got pregnant again a year later. Normal pregnancy, nothing too unusual about the delivery. Long story short: my baby had a heart defect, the operation to repair it failed, and Alex died when he was two days old.

I was a basket case for a couple of years after that. Two subsequent pregnancies resulted in two healthy children. But I know I was almost insane with fear that something bad would happen to one of my children. Once something like that happens, you realize that you are not exempt from the heartache you see around you. These things don't happen only to "other people" any more.

When Alex died, I just wanted to stop time. I had a hard time moving forward. I felt I needed to mourn. I needed to cry every single day. Then one day I realized it wasn't disloyal of me if I didn't cry. And it didn't mean that I had forgotten him, or that I didn't love him.

Moving ahead, moving forward, moving on. It's hard. However, that's just how the clock runs. It doesn't stay still, and it doesn't run backward. We really don't have a choice: we have to move forward. This old earth keeps turning and we have to ride along. Hiding under the bed won't stop it.

Most people, at some point, take a tumble. They get in a car accident. They break an arm, or tear up an ankle.  And even after the wounds heal, sometimes they still ache on rainy days. Hearts are like that too. And we all have our rainy days. All we can do is keep going, hoping we will drive out of the rain eventually. And we will. You will.