From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour.

I'm your host Jay Allison, producer of this show.

In this episode, stories about healing, all the ways we

manage to recover from the hard stuff. I should mention that because of the nature of this

theme, many of the stories contain references to difficult subjects and traumatic events,

so be cautioned. Our first story, an intense one, as I mentioned, is told by Betsy Lamberson at a show in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, that we produced in partnership with Center for the Arts.

Here's Betsy, live at the mall.

In 2006, I was living my dream life in Cairo, Egypt with my husband Tom.

Tom was working as a teacher at a local school.

I was 24, I had just graduated with the degree in Middle East Studies in Arabic,

and I landed a job with a nonprofit that I was deeply passionate about.

And it was incredible.

I spoke the language.

I had this view of the pyramids from my office,

and I truly believed I was exactly where I wanted to be doing

exactly what I wanted to be doing exactly what I wanted to be doing.

In fact, we were so happy there that we decided to stay as long as we could, and so I invited

my dad and stepmom to come visit us from where they lived in Wyoming. Now, my parents aren't

big world travelers, but they were willing

to come visit us because they wanted to see what our life was like. So when they got to Egypt,

we go straight to this little village in the Sinai Peninsula called Dahab. And one night we're

walking around and we're just looking for a place to eat.

...