stand tall

Resilience is the word of the day. I've been so moved recently by the resilience of others, who handle the most challenging circumstances with such strength and dignity: a classmate of mine (40 years old) who is getting a double mastectomy jokes that it's better to be flat chested than flatlined. She says some people say "why me?" and her immediate thought is, "why not me?" It's life: bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people.
A friend of my husband found out his wife is pregnant and both he and his wife lost their jobs within two days of one another. But he's so overjoyed about their pregnancy, because his wife had recently suffered a miscarriage that the rest is just stuff that will work itself out.
Life throws us curveballs all the time - but we can choose how we want to respond to them.
The bravest woman I ever saw, was on the Oprah show, her family was Tutsi, and the Hutu militia had slaughtered all 16 members of her extended family and wiped out her entire village of friends during the massacre that took place in Rwanda. She was raped repeatedly and escaped when her attackers were resting from exhaustion.
She was a smiling, beautiful, happy woman who still had a light within her. Where does that strength come from? I found her resilience, in what was one of the most tragic stories I had ever heard, to be nothing short of phenomenal.
Take stock of what you have. For me, my wealth is: my health, and the health of my family and friends. Seriously, the rest is gravy. xo