The Promise of Tomorrow

by Mary Ellen Taylor

What I discovered was that grief could be tricky. It was mobile and could track me for thousands of miles. The faster I drove, the quicker my grief moved. Each time I thought I’d lost it around the last curve in the road, I found it in the passenger seat, weeping. No matter how many days or months I logged on the road, it kept pace.

“The big takeaway is that peace is a journey, not a destination, or so I was told. It’s like a butterfly that flits in and out of our lives. Some energies attract the butterfly, and others chase it away. The trick is to notice when those fluttering wings appear because the butterfly never lingers very long.”

“I am more comfortable with anger than fear. The anger permits moral outrage, and I can get a lot of work done when I’m juicing on fury. But fear is a different beast. It consumes and paralyzes me.”

Like it or not, there was no magic riding to my rescue. If anyone was going to save me, it was going to be me.