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The Journey
by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Mobtown sent me this poem in an email, which I know, but have never really owned before. I am back from the last leg of the harrowing journey to put an offical end to a terrible, hateful, grief-filled chapter in my life. Another thirty days before the weight lifts all the way off my shoulders but I'll never have to pass through this particular tunnel again. Now I can settle down to the task of rebuilding that I've already been at (with amazing amounts of support) for several years.

Amen!