Well, Spaw, I can totally empathize with that one. When my mom died in 1987, I went into a period of mourning that went on for years. She had a great heart and a great mind.

But the "change my life" incident that came to mind for me, aside from the indescribable gift and honor of being a mother, happened during that period of mourning. I was a late-life undergrad, taking Latin classes among other things, and I had agreed to tutor a woman who was really struggling with it. I walked up to the campus in a mood of bleak, black misery, pretty much wishing I could die. Then I started tutoring this woman, who was in her 50s and had never taken a foreign language before -- but she was going for her BA and needed to meet this requirement. Within less than ten minutes of beginning to tutor her I felt great. I was laughing and having a good time. She was also having a good time, and feeling much more hopeful. At that point I decided to be a Latin teacher. That was some thirteen years ago, and I still get a big lift from teaching Latin, especially one-on-one (I tutor college students privately). It's a weird thing to love doing, and I took an office job last year thinking I needed to earn more money. But it was a lousy fit, and I was wretched at it, and unhappy. They took pity on me and fired me in September, and now I'm tutoring again.