My healing journey started in earnest shortly after my mother died in June of 2012, almost 33 years after losing my first husband. Grieving was familiar to me, but not because I recognized it for what it was. I just fell into it. I learned to cope by putting my pain in a survivable place on a shelf. I chipped away at the edges once in a while until, one day, pain started heaping itself upon pain. I looked in the mirror and saw the lines of age in my face and I got scared. Time was slipping away, and I knew I needed to live my life in a much better space. So, I put on my walking shoes and took to the trails outdoors. I went to a place where I could reflect, where I could be sad, and let change have its way in my life. I wrote my way through all kinds of pain over a five year period that started with a wake-up call, and ended in a much different space I now, very reverently, call my new home.