Four stories. Which three are true?
A friend who I’m not in close touch with – my age, an accomplished writer, also a mom to one daughter – had a stroke this summer. She remains hospitalized, gritting through weeks of rehab.
Someone I was just introduced to professionally, probably younger than me, an accomplished writer, also a mom to one daughter – lost her partner. Still acclimating to his death, she’s now trying to work out how to be a solo mom, to say nothing of the sole breadwinner.
An acquaintance I’ve known for the better part of the year killed someone in his past. It was an accident. He was young. He served several years in prison for it. And now, by all outward appearances, he lives a happy life as a married dad of two.
A dear friend brought home a puppy for her two kids. After about a week, they were at the pool. The puppy fell in. The daughter was the one to realize it and retrieve him from the bottom. They took him to the animal hospital, alive, but ultimately the pup didn’t make it.
I wish only three of these stories were true, but they’re all true. I learned the first two on the same day, and the latter two on the same day, and I just can’t shake the sadness and disbelief of each of them. These are people and friends who are just like me, their everyday lives and routines so similar. As much as we all know tragedy and illness are part of life, they are still always a shock when they happen to you. A sucker-punch. A massive dose of unfairness. I mean, how does a healthy 50-year-old woman have a stroke? And how do you just carry on, knowing it could just have easily been you?
I know there are lessons in here. Lessons in the stories we hear every day. Lessons from the people we know and love, and the people who just cross our paths. These reminders that break through the noise and monotony to tell us to be louder, freer, more loving and daring. To take the chance, to do the thing. To want more but to be content with what you have and where you are. To be ready to claim it all as your own, knowing that it can change at any moment.