The past few months have been hard on our “faith in humanity”.  We have seen so much vitriol, so much anger, and so much impatience that sometimes it seems impossible to reconcile the differences.

That’s part of the reason I want to tell you about this beautiful lady today.  Her story reminds me that we humans are resilient.  We bounce back, we rise up, we change, and we move forward – even through the most difficult circumstances.

A year and a half ago, T’s husband of many years was diagnosed with cancer.  A week later, he passed away, leaving her and her two grown children stunned and broken by the loss.  

How does a person recover from the death of a spouse so early in life?  How do you properly mourn his loss, but also allow yourself to live a full life again?  The feelings involved are so complex: grief, anger, hope, joy, and guilt – and you never know which is going to hit you next.  

So, how do you recover?  It’s a messy business, but you wake up every day, you cry alone, you cry with your friends, you try new things, you acknowledge that the person you were is as gone as your lost spouse.  And then you wake up every day, you cry alone, you cry with your friends, you try new things and you watch someone new rise up from the ashes of your former life.  You shake hands with her, you study her, test her a bit and then you walk into your future as her – a stronger, wiser, humbler version of the person you used to be.

That’s what I’m counting on at the other end of this pandemic.  Right now, it’s messy and there are so many mixed emotions charging around.  We will recover, though, and hopefully emerge as stronger, wiser, humbler people.  T is living proof – we can do it too.