Many years ago, I was in a really tough place. I was overwhelmed with grief after my sister passed away. It was a very heavy feeling, I was pregnant and my oldest son was 2 1/2. There was no time to wallow and cry. I simply carried on. My adorable son had counted on his mom and was in no position to process what had happened.

At that time I discovered a mom hack to slow down my very active son: BARNEY VIDEOS. He would sit down for small periods at a time. He loved all the music. Personally my favorite was the clean up song, however during this time we both enjoyed singing “If all the raindrops were lemon drops and gumdrops oh what a rain that would be….” at some point we would click our tongues to the tune. It would make him laugh and give me those adorable hugs boys give their mommas.

Suddenly I realized I was laughing and skipping with my son and feeling somewhat normal again. It made it easy to put one foot in front of the other and smile again. Who would have ever a Purple Dinosaur would help an adult during a dark time.

A few more children later, my marriage crumbled. Divorce is similar to processing death. This brought back those same dark overwhelming feelings. Again there was no time to cry and wallow. At this point I had probably had thrown those Barney tapes in the trash. One can only listen to those songs 100,000 times before you literally crack. Barney was not going to work this time.

I decided to be on the search for an adult song that I wasn’t sick of and one that would make me smile as well as feel strong. “I will survive” by Gloria Gayner just seemed too corny.

Ah Ha! I found a perfect one hit wonder! “Ooh-oo Child things are gonna get easier, ooh-oo child things are gonna get brighter, some day yeah.” I bought the CD and played in the car. The kids loved it and I loved it! My entire mood lifted which meant I was able to focus on being a better mom and a better person while getting my life back on track.

When I stumble across these songs, they still make me smile but at the same time remind me of the difficult journey I had many years ago and often I feel a tear start to roll.