My book and Vox Dei blogs went quiet for a week or so while I took time to be a friend instead of a writer/Managing Director. Part of that entailed a fairly impromptu road trip, and then the subsequent catching-up that inevitably follows time off.

I was so blessed to have a chance to say goodbye for now to a dear friend who's moving, and to check in on her to see for myself that she came through brain surgery remarkably well. (Yes, brain surgery. How terrifying.)  But on top of that blessing, I have a whole new appreciation for Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, only my Oz looked a bit more like Ohio and my tornado was a freak storm called life. After a whirlwind trip with my oldest, which included stops in St. Louis to drop off and pick up my youngest two, I find myself with a even more enamored with my beloved Missouri Ozarks. Here are the top five things I missed while I was gone.

1. Hills: Maybe it's a misnomer to call them the Ozark Mountains, technically they fall just short of a a true mountain range, but the cragged hills of home are breathtakingly beautiful. Every time I look across them, my heart soars. As my Blazer gobbled up mile after mile of flat terrain, Dylan and I both missed our winding Ozark roads more and more. Something in my just feels off when I'm not surrounded by these hills.
2. Trees: I take for granted the symphony of trees we have in the Ozarks. Right now, they're in an explosion of color as the flowering trees triumphantly announce the arrival of spring. There is nothing quite as peaceful as the cool woods on a hot summer day. I remember an aunt from Iowa came to visit when I was 15. She couldn't get over all of the trees. I thought it was so odd at the time. It was only after I saw more of our country when I realized we really do have more than our fair share of foliage in this part of the country. I can't imagine not having big ol' gnarly trees all around me. They add so much life to a place.
3. Streams: I gotta be honest, I debated putting sweet tea on my list. It's really hard to find good sweet tea once you head north. But I ultimately had to go with the streams. I live in a land crisscrossed by meandering streams. This time of year, the streams and rivers spill over their banks in a happy gurgle that promises new life. True, my farm is also surrounded by low-lying bridges and it's entirely possible that most of the roads in or out could be underwater after a good thunder-bumper, but it's a small price to pay considering the countless hours of entertainment creek walks provide for my boys.
4. Animals: It might seem obvious to others, but it really occurred to me on this trip that I live at the edge of cattle country. We have a good mix of beef cattle, dairy operations, homesteaders with their hodgepodge of animals, horse ranches... while many of our surrounding states are crop country. At one point in Indiana, Dylan commented "Oh yay, another corn field. I was getting bored with that last corn field." I realized how spoiled we are to get to watch baby cows play in the fields each spring. To look out over our hills and know they'll be dotted with horses or cows.
5. Chatty people: I try really hard to be friendly to the people I encounter on any given day. When I order fast food, I smile, say hi, and ask the cashier how his or her day is going. That got a lot of odd looks and even some irritated sighs the further north I headed. I'm sure the people in the towns I passed through are delightful, but they aren't very chatty. I knew we were home when I asked a cashier how her day was and by the time my purchases were rung up, I'd advised her (at her request) on Mother's day gifts and puppy breeds. We also like to wave a lot down here. It's the only place in the country I've been where people wave as they pass each other on the road. If you don't at least get a friendly nod, you wonder what was wrong. And I'm not just talking about waving at the people you know - I mean you wave at everyone. It's just how things are done.

While we were on our trip, someone jokingly referred to Missouri as "Misery." I've heard the joke before - as a teenager, I probably made it because I was so eager for adventure. But I've come to realize over the years that I was blessed to have roots in such a wildly, ruggedly beautiful place. These hills really are my home and I'm so very thankful for them.

My favorite part of the journey I'm on as a writer is the people I've met along the way. Galit Breen is one of those amazing individuals I never would have met had I not mustered up the courage to chase my dream. She's one of the kindest, warmest people I've ever encountered, so it broke my heart when I heard she'd been the victim of cyberbullying. Leave it to Galit to take something bad and flip it on its head, using it to make the world a better place. Can't say enough how much I adore this woman or how happy I am to introduce you to her today. ~Heather

This summer I wrote an online article about marriage and the comments that came in on it were about my weight. I learned a lot from this. These are my top three lessons from experiencing cyberbullying firsthand and how we can use them to help our kids if it happens to them.

1. Cyberbullying hurts. It hurts a lot. Even though my friends didn’t know what had happened because they weren’t checking the article comments like I was, it felt like everyone knew and I was embarrassed and devastated. I felt very alone.

Lesson learned: Don’t diminish this hurt. Allow the person who experiences cyberbullying to feel sad, mad, and embarrassed without ever (not even once) telling them, “It’s not that big of a deal.”

2. When I talked about what happened, I felt better. When I turned inward all I had was my own hurt. But when I turned outward, I had all the goodness of the people around me. This was a lift.

Lesson learned: Don’t silence someone who is speaking up. Bring it up, listen when they want to talk, hold space for this significant experience. We focus a lot on staying positive in our society. And I do believe in the power of positivity, but talking about the negative, the hard, the ugly has its place, too. And this is it.

3. This world is filled with a lot of good people. But you only get to reap the benefits of this if you let them in. I’m a tried-and-true introvert, reaching out can be hard for me. But I would still be in a very bad place if I didn’t let good people get close.

Lesson learned: We have to pick who we surround ourselves with purposefully. And we have to teach our kids this skill as well. I’ve been very transparent with my own children about how good the people in our lives are, and that I had to reach out to them first before they knew to be there for me. In this case, letting someone “in” can be translated as letting someone into our hearts, into our vulnerabilities. This isn’t easy for everyone. We need to encourage and model this for our kids. And we need to show them that this works by listening to them and being there for them when they do it.

A few months after my cyberbullying experience, after I had a chance to be good and sad about it, I did speak up. I wrote a second article calling out my cyberbullies and calling for online kindness. That article went viral. I wasn’t alone anymore.

From there, I chose to take lemons—being called fat online—and make lemonade—write a book about how to teach our kids to be kind online. I even titled it, Kindness Wins.

All of this happened to me as an adult. And even though I had the perspective and experience of understanding the power of using our voices and telling our stories, it was still a process to get to the “doing” part of things. I wasn’t able to, in Heather’s words, leave my mark—immediately or alone. 

So if someone you care about is cyberbullied remember to move slowly in giving them time to be sad and listening to them talk. And move quickly in telling them that their story matters, that they matter, in standing by their side, and in telling their story, too.

Heather asked me to share what mark I want to leave on the world. Kindness Wins is definitely it. I want to be a part of the conversation that creates a culture of kindness where all of us and our kids can be online without the assumption that one of us will be cyberbullied. I want online kindness to be a given and cyberbullying to be the surprise. It’s through these conversations that we’ll not just say that kindness wins, but ensure that it does.