When I think back to those dark days following the death of my late wife and daughter, I always return to an early January morning a week before my twenty-seventh birthday.

In the months following their deaths, it became routine to awaken at 5:00 a.m. and go for a four mile run.

It wasn’t easy.

I’d awake five minutes before the alarm clock beeped and stare at the dark ceiling and contemplate the two choices I faced every morning: Stay in bed or go running.

Staying in bed was the easy option. Under the covers it was warm and a place where I could pretend that all was right with the world. It was a fortress of solitude that could protect me from the aftermath of my late wife’s suicide and death of my premature daughter nine days later.

Choosing to run was more difficult. It meant committing to another day and the uncertainties that came with it. It meant facing family, friends, and coworkers who still seemed uncertain what to say or how to act in my presence. It meant dealing with the emotions of a suicide survivor and grieving parent.

In the end, I always ran because I knew that staying in bed would ultimately lead down the dark path of depression – the one place I truly wanted to avoid.

This morning, however, was particularly difficult. The wind was blowing bits of snow against the bedroom window. Morning runs were always cold, but today I was sure the temperature outside was well below zero. To top it off I awoke filled with a cocktail of grief, anger, and guilt. Running was the last thing I wanted to do.

As I lay in bed deciding what path to follow, I realized I had reached a pivotal moment in my life. The choice to run or stay in bed was more than just about what was going to happen today. It was about the future. It was the morning where I would choose to live or die.

If I could run despite the wind and the overwhelming sadness I felt, then I could do it every morning for the rest of my life. Somehow I knew that running this very morning would give me the strength to rebuild a shattered and broken life.

However, staying in bed would mean that I had finally succumbed to the dark void everyone feels when they lose someone they love. It meant giving up and deciding that life wasn’t worth living anymore.

I knew my life would continue if I chose the latter. I wasn’t about to kill myself. But it would be a different life: one spent focused on loss and pain. I would stay places where I felt safe and protected. I would build emotional walls around myself and hide from the rest of the world. It would be a life spent alone.

My alarm clock beeped. It was 5:00 a.m.

I had a choice to make.

I went running.

This is what I want my Open to Hope blog to be about: Getting out of bed and putting one foot in front of the other – especially on days when that is the last thing we want to do.

It’s a blog about moving forward when it seems there’s no reason to continue.

It’s a blog about learning to live again.