I remembered looking up in the sky to see the contrail of a jet overhead. I thought how the harrowing journey that took Marie's family four months across the plains would take a little more than two hours in a plane.

The shoreline of my thoughts disappeared as I drifted upon an open ocean of reflection.

You see that car?' he said. 'I drive where I want, I have everything I want and all my life I have had three meals a day. I have nice clothes and a good place to live. I’ve been given everything and it’s time I did some- thing for someone besides myself.

Suddenly a feeling swam over her with a mighty strength. The feeling was both overwhelming and peaceful, linking her to some cosmic and eternal force as the earth around her became more vibrant and alive. It was as if heaven and earth, past and present, were all one in an instant.

It seemed so simple in a lot of ways, to use a basic melody to pull away from myself. To ease the pain and hide my feelings deep within a metaphor that only I understood. I couldn’t have foreseen that my quiet and dark night of the soul would start me down a path of expression through song.

In my mind, past, present and future became a blur as I stood in the middle of the celestial room, in the middle of forever. It was as if I were to take a rope that went on forever in both directions and cut it anywhere then the cut would always be exactly in the middle. And if I cut it twice I would have a beginning and an end, but eternity would continue in both directions.

The things that matter most to me are eternal. The bonds of love shared within a family I believe to be eternal.

I don’t think my journey has to be harrowing to be important. Simply doing the tasks of the day is enough. Such as getting up every morning to go to work to support my family and sacrificing personal time in service to others, teaching my children to give thanks for what they have and to care for others.

If there was one thing I learned from all my research, it was that the majority of the early pioneers didn’t dwell on the hard times; they indeed related every aspect of their lives to their relationship with God, specifically in regards to this disastrous journey. They thanked Him for their lives and the fact that they made it through. Most didn't blame leaders or those around them. They learned to accept their plight and move forward with faith.

In a matter of moments, I awakened to a life that wasn’t mine. It was like peering into a dark hidden world that I wasn’t supposed to know about and that my mind didn’t want to believe existed.