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Growing up the Tough Way

    by Elaine Bradford

"You know what, Natalie? You need to just GET OVER IT! It was how long ago that it happened? You need to move on! I can't believe you're still stuck on

DON'T say it! you KNOW how much Will meant to me! I can't believe you expect me to just keep going after what happened.

What happened, happened three months ago, Nat, and you can't change it. You can't turn back the hands of time, and you can't change anything, either; especially by sitting around looking all pitiful all the time! I can't believe you- you're acting like a five year old- grow up!"

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Growing up was one of the hardest things for me to do. Especially growing up with the lesson I was given to grow up on. Most people grow up with a lesson in love, or a lesson in hate, or even a lesson in compassion. Why did my lesson have to be so difficult? My fiancé was killed in an accident at work. He was working at a construction site, when he fell off of a steel beam, several feet up in the air. I was only seventeen, and I had a whole life in front of me, and most of it was to be spent with Will. 

My sister thought that it would be easy for me to get over what had happened, but she wasn't engaged to him. She didn't know Will like I knew him. And she wanted me to grow up, quit acting like such a child. I was trying, but I don't think children act the way they do because they're experiencing depression. I don't think that children act the way they do because their fiancé died. I thought I was just dealing, dealing my way.

My way wasn't good enough for Keleigh, but my way was always good for Will. I didn't see why I needed to change the way had been loved by a very special person just because I didn't act to someone else's liking. But deep down, I knew Kel had to be right. I just didn't know how to change. I wanted to change so that Will would have been proud of me, Keleigh would be proud of me, and I would like what I'd become.

I spent three more grueling months trying different attitudes and styles, and hating all of them. And then it hit me. What I needed wasn't to change, it was to just be at peace with everything. I had been so upset that I realized what I was upset with: God, myself, Keleigh, Will's company, and the list just never ended. I needed to move on.

I didn't change, I just changed the way things looked to me, and that changed how my sister looked at me. I grew up, met a new guy, who is just as wonderful as Will was, and who Will would have gotten along with very well, and now I have a little boy. His name is Will, and I've got a little girl on the way. Maybe I'll name her Keleigh.