A (True) Story of Resilience

I spent 30 minutes the other day listening to someone do a dry run of her oral exams, the final step in a three-year journey to a master’s degree in counseling. I felt privileged to be her sounding board and became enthralled by the depth of her knowledge and the clear picture she painted of her experiences working as a counselor, sitting with others in their pain or confusion. Against the backdrop of her own tragedies, she maintained focus on what propelled her forward, making it easy for me to lean in with my full attention.

I fell into the rhythm of the narrative, deciding right away I did not have the capacity that she had, an ability to sit alongside people in their human-ness, with their frayed collars and unraveling lives, reaching for the skills to be emotionally whole, a brave and arduous bit of work. She was prepared, and it showed—a take-your-breath-away marvel. Listening to her, I remembered how good it feels to give your full attention to just one thing, one person. (Another silent vow to stop multitasking!).

There was so much resolve in her face, so much purpose. She knew what she wanted: to connect effectively with her clients so that she could play a part in their journey toward emotional balance and fulfillment. Her unwavering focus revealed the power of purpose in fortifying resilience, something we all need more of as we navigate the twists and turns of being one single human in a complex world, one that needs every kind of healing and is capable of every level of resilience. Knowing her background, I was most struck by her capacity to care about the troubles of other people when she had traveled to hell and back herself.

This woman moved from her rural Wyoming community to Denver three years ago at age 55 to attend graduate school. At the time, she was three and a half years into widowhood and embroiled in the sudden onset of a close family member’s mental health crisis. It became her job to navigate the gaps and traps, the terrors and incredulities a family must face if grief or trauma or the misfortune of bad brain chemistry tips a human being from bright and full of life one day to depressed, manic, homeless, hurt, or missing, in days to follow.

In these few years she has moved twice, staged two cross-country rescues of her loved one, grieved her losses, done her homework, and gotten both Covid and senioritis, recovering in time to get her final project done. Through all of it, she turned in her papers, earned straight As, made new friends, did her emotional work with fervor, counseled her sister through an unraveling marriage, and kept up with her parents and family. She found joy wherever she could: with her dog, cooking healthy food, hiking under Colorado skies, at a Brandi Carlile concert with her daughter, sitting in the botanic gardens, watching the sky become transformed on the wing of a single bluebird taking flight.

“How did you manage to be so brave, so strong?” I asked my lion-hearted friend, at the end of her practice session on Zoom. 

“Well, we’re not wimps,” she said, laughing and crying at once. 

The sun literally cracked through the clouds as she said this, and my mind shifted to spring’s promise of greener pastures, both in actuality and in infinite metaphor. Our lives, our moods, our seasons are whiplashed by sunshine one day, inches of snow the next, and always mud to slog through. Lotus flowers grow in mud, I know, but I was surprised to learn recently that the flowers fold carefully into themselves each night, to rise and open again at dawn.