Back in Des Moines and haunting myself in an Ebeneezer Scrooge kind of way has brought me round to a not so profound conclusion – moving on and away from the past is better than constantly, or even just occasionally, ruminating on the fairness or unfairness of the cards we are dealt.

What I hope I do more often than not is remember what I have learned from my not so long ago – good times and bad – put it into practice and remember that I am a very fortunate person all things considered.

All along I have told Rob that I wasn’t looking forward to coming back to Des Moines and seeing all the old sites and visiting Will’s grave. To me it seemed like a pointless scab-picking of my soul. I am not someone who buys into the notion that tragedy and grief should be ruminated about and given in to simply because it happens to be there and handy. But my daughter had need of seeing the headstone, visiting the old places and seeing people, and so I have sucked it up and picked a bit around the edges but not enough to draw blood. There really is no need for that.

Today we wandered the mall and did things that were familiar to BabyDaughter from the life she and I lived during the years her father was dying and mostly living apart from us. I think she was very surprised by the fact that things have changed and life here has clearly gone on without us.

Tears have been shed by all of us at different points in the last three days but not many and not hysterically and not without a realization that to be happy now – then had to happen and be survived, which for me is not as hard to reconcile as one might think or expect.

Life goes on. Mostly because it has to. The whole thing was designed this way and not by accident.

Rob asked me if I miss living here and the answer is no and yes.

I consider home to be where Rob is because people embody the idea most that people speak of when they talk about “being at home” or “going home”, but life in the U.S. is corruptively convenient and this makes it easier than living where we do in Canada. Things are abundant, relatively inexpensive and readily available. This does not make here home to me though. It just makes it easy and thoughtless.

I still feel a bit alien here even though I probably stick out more where we live in Alberta. Being back reminds me of how different I am and how much I have changed – hopefully grown – over the past year. It reminds me too of how far in the past the past really is and how quickly time moves forward when you allow yourself to live.