I grip the man who helped bury the truth beneath a collapsed bridge. The river tries to wrench him from my hands. For one suspended heartbeat, I could let the current decide. Instead, I choose the harder rescue.
My phone erupts—harsh, jagged, loud enough to scrape nerves raw. The sound doesn’t stop. EMERGENCY ALERT INCOMING MISSILE THREAT SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER THIS IS NOT A TEST IMPACT ESTIMATE: 14 MINUTES Sirens blast overhead. Not a test. Fourteen minutes. The kids. Now.
I broke…and discovered I could bend. The ground beneath my feet crumbled…I was born to fly. I drowned in fear…and learned to breathe under water. I fell apart…when I put the pieces together in a new way they mirrored my heart. I hit bottom…and danced. Her words cut me…until I learned they described her. I lost everything…and discovered the freedom in starting over. Silence swallowed me…until I heard my own voice. I walked away…and found my way to something much…
Early in life, I feared blindness. Then Deuce came into my life. We were close to two miles from the road when Deuce, a sixteen-pound sheepdog lookalike chased a small animal across the road. He heard me coming through the woods after him. I ran nearly four mph with two other leashed up dogs. Deuce was faster. That’s when he lost an eye thinking he could outwit a truck and get back across the road to me before I scolded…
When we face unexpected challenges, we find out who we are. When I was in my 20s, my fiancé died in a plane crash a few days before marriage. Not long after that, my son died of an undiagnosed, inoperable heart condition. Before these two events, when I called my dad to wish him, “Happy Father’s Day,” I learned my healthy father had died from an unexpected heart attack. As you might expect, these triple tragedies left me reeling. The…
