I am trying to decide what exactly I want to write about here, and it seems to make most sense to start at the beginning of this journey. I had it all and it was ripped away from me. I was married to my best friend, had an awesome career and two beautiful children. And I am happy to be able to say that I realized it at the time, not just in retrospect. My husband and I would ride together to work, with our kids in the backseat because they went to daycare on the campus of the medical school where we were both on faculty, and we would often say out loud, “Wow, we are lucky”. Yes, we were. But that changed. At the age of 39, my husband suddenly passed away. He suffered a carotid artery dissection from no discernible cause, and died two days after my daughter’s first birthday. I was left with a 4 year old son and 1 year old daughter to raise on my own. OK, there’s the stage. More in another post.