A World View

Something To Think About. . .

"The world is before you

 

and you need not take it 

 

or leave it as it was when you came in."

 

~ James Baldwin

 

 

Heavy Fog Rolls Into New York City
NY Metro Weather via Earthcam

 

Falling Can Make You Stronger

One of my sisters sent me the video posted below that's about Moms and the endless, loving support they give their children.  In the case of this video, it shows Moms and their budding athletes in the beginning stages of learning their sports skills and then the years of repetition, the daily practice, practice, practice performed by the children until they reach the ultimate competition of the Olympics.

It's a wonderful video, tracing the path of infants and babies falling, getting back up, trying again and again, finally learning to ice skate, snowboard and ski so that they may perform more accomplished routines.

 

 

On another level, the video is also about raw persistence, resilience, determination and the commitment to never give up on your passions and your dream no matter what you decide to pursue in life.

Emotional resilience doesn't come to you just like that.  Unfortunately, you don't wake up one morning and suddenly you are resilient.  But don't be discouraged.  Resilience is the ability to become strong, healthy, bounce back or rebuild again after a loss, or a personal crisis.  The good news is resilience is something that can be developed within you.

 

You can gain strength through pain.  And little by little I bet you are doing it every day and you may not realize it.  Always get back up.  You can do it!

 

Here's the "Thanks Mom" video:

 

 

Malala's Light

When the news first broke a year ago that 14-year old Malala Yousafzai had been shot in the head by the Taliban while sitting in a school bus all I could imagine was the extreme fear and chaos of that terrifying moment.

How could someone be so afraid of a child on her way to school?

Just by going to school, Malala defied the Taliban and its oppressive measures directed towards women by supporting education for girls in her small village in Pakistan's Swat Valley.  That simple act made her a target.  Given the extreme nature of her injuries last October, I hoped she would somehow survive her attack.  I read all of the stories about her being transported to a hospital in London for treatment and how her family followed her to Great Britain to watch over her.

Malala has more than survived.  She is now providing the light of leadership and inspiration to people around the world who may feel there is no hope and feel lost because they think it doesn't matter what they do.  They think that one person cannot make a difference.  She is proof that one person, no matter what their age, can have tenacity of spirit to follow their passions and despite the odds, affect change.



Malala Yousafzai & President Obama Meet at the White House
Photo Courtesy of the White House

Malala is the essence of courage.  Her honesty and steadfast truth telling is shining a light in some of the darkest and most forgotten places on Earth.  She was recently nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize and came to the United States to meet with President Obama and speak at the World Bank.

Unfortunately, she didn't win the Nobel Peace Peace but instead she has won the love of millions of people who have never met her.  I don't know where Malala Yousafzai has found the courage and sheer guts at such a young age to speak out and fight for her right to go to school and be educated but she is one fierce young woman.

And fierce we all must be as we battle the stresses and burdens that life presents to us.

Let's forge ahead and work for positive change in our lives too.  Whether it's processing the loss of a loved one or dealing with challenges of a different sort in our lives, please read this short story from Marie Claire magazine featuring Malala's most inspirational quotes and may the light of her determination energize you:

http://www.marieclaire.com/world-reports/inspirational-women/malala-yousafzai-inspirational-quotes?src=spr_TWITTER&spr_id=1449_26631286

Sonia Sotomayor

I am a big believer in the idea that when someone offers you a helping hand that you should turn around and offer your hand to help someone else.

It's the right thing to do and haven't you also found that you always get more out of life when you become actively involved and emotionally invest in it?  I know I do!

I'm guessing that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor practices this same philosophy because she recently went back to her childhood roots in the Bronx, NY and spent the day with young children from the Dream Big program at Environment Day held at Fordham University.  Dream Big is a four to six week summer arts enrichment program for elementary school aged children program at local schools and community based organizations.

US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor reads
to the children at the Dream Big program

Sotomayor had a rough childhood.  She was born in a public housing project, her father was an alcoholic and she was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes when she was eight years old.  After her father died when she was nine, her mother worked as nurse and raised Sonia and her brother, Juan.  The power of education was something their mother emphasized over and over to them and it was Sonia's ticket out of the Bronx.

 

She was inspired by Nancy Drew books (my favorite too!) and those books plus watching Perry Mason on television lead to her wanting to become a lawyer and ultimately the first Hispanic to become a member of the Supreme Court.

"My dream is that each of you finds your dream and that it comes true," Sotomayor told the children.  "And I hope that when you reach your dream, you'll write me a letter and you'll tell me."

Despite her very busy schedule on the Supreme Court, Sotomayor frequently returns to the Bronx, which she calls her "beloved world," to stay involved with her dynamic community, to give back what she has learned so far in her life journey and to help inspire children to achieve goals that may take them beyond their neighborhoods.

"Don't give up chasing your dreams," Sotomayor said.

 

Giving to others can offer us a view of ourselves as strong and valued and needed.  Whether you come from the Bronx or you are in a place where you are trying to rebuild your life, I hope Sonia Sotomayor's tenacity inspires you to stay on your path and continue to follow your passions wherever they may take you and don't forget to help another person along the way.

Good Luck to Marathon Runners

 

Good luck today to my son and a great friend of his who are

 

running a marathon in Richmond, VA!!

 

It's a beautiful day, perfect for being outside and running, and I hope their race is successful!!

 

Hopefully, no one pulls anything or gets dehydrated.

 

Stay strong runners!  Your efforts are amazing!!!

A Positive Attitude In Cancerland

I don't always feel positive about all of the situations that life throws my way but I do feel very positive about life.

 

Would I continue to feel positive if I were diagnosed with cancer?

 

I would hope so!  I would hope that my love of living, my love for my family and friends and my love of life in general would kick my fighting spirit into high gear and that I would become determined not to let cancer win.

 

But that's easy for me to say because I have not been diagnosed with cancer.  I know a handful of people who are battling cancer right now and I have learned a lot from them about life, mental outlook, pain and especially love.  I never take my good health for granted.  I work hard to keep myself mentally and physically healthy and by the grace of God, I will stay that way.

 

In the sweet story below, Joel Achenbach, a fantastic reporter and writer for The Washington Post, writes of his mother's optimistic attitude since her breast cancer diagnosis and surgery.  What a warm and courageous woman she is! 

 

Photo By Joel Achenbach/The Washington Post
Joel Achenbach's mother, selling plants at a spring garden festival
 soon after she has surgery for breast cancer

Cancer hasn’t dimmed my mother’s upbeat attitude. How far can optimism take her?

By Joel Achenbach, The Washington Post 

Published: April 1

 

A few weeks ago, I took my mom shopping for a refrigerator to replace the one that had been in the kitchen since the Nixon administration. Pleasantries with the salesman took a more somber turn when he revealed that his wife has breast cancer and is seeking to heal herself solely through the power of prayer. My mom listened attentively, then touched the salesman on the chest and said, authoritatively, “Carrot juice! And blueberries!”

 

She is a believer in the restorative powers of fruits and vegetables, and of wholesome living more generally. She doesn’t reject modern medicine, nor would she seek a miracle cure through prayer or New Age therapies. But she is not someone terribly interested in medicine, or technology in general, preferring to exist in a world that is like the one she grew up in — simple, natural, earthy. She has spent her years outdoors, growing plants, doing landscaping, surrounding herself with flowers. She has often ended the day with a cold beer under the grape arbor in her back yard. The yard is a two-acre botanical wonder where she and my stepfather, Jim, have their nursery, plus a robust garden, productive citrus trees and winding footpaths among native plants and towering trees.

 

I called to check on her the other day. After quickly assuring me she was fine, she launched into a prescription for how I might reduce some minor leg pain that’s been bothering me: “Point one foot at the North Pole and one foot at the South Pole and bend over and touch the floor,” she said.

 

Though full of medical advice for others, she doesn’t talk much about her own illness, and it didn’t seem to occur to her to tell the appliance salesman that she, too, has breast cancer, stage 3. Here’s the key fact about my mom: She doesn’t consider herself sick.

She’s the opposite of a hypochondriac, never missing a chance to brag about her unusually good posture and the physical strength that many women her age would envy. She informs doctors that her nickname is Tough Lady. When I asked her if I could write something about her medical situation, she said, “Make sure to include what I tell every doctor: ‘I’m not old, and I’m not sick!’ ”

No question, she has a wonderful attitude, and her sunny disposition if distilled and bottled would be sold in every drugstore on the planet.

A fine line

But an objective account of Emily Notestein’s health history, and of her attitude toward medicine, would surely note that she has not been a diligent student of her disease and that she showed no interest in seeking aggressive treatment when it first appeared. There is a fine line between optimism and denial. The power of positive thinking goes only so far.

How aggressively we deal with cancer hinges in part on age and whether the disease threatens to truncate a life dramatically or merely lop off some years in the final decade or two. And cancer in a septuagenarian can be more indolent than cancer in a young woman. Thus, an older person like my mother faces a different mental calculation than someone who is in the prime of her life. Cancer at 76 doesn’t feel like a tragedy.

My mother first had breast cancer two years ago; she had a lumpectomy and no further treatment. She insisted that she didn’t need chemotherapy or radiation or a combination thereof. A plausible scenario is that she was stunned by the high cost of the procedure, and lacked Medicare Part B coverage, because back when she was 65 she felt no need to sign up for something that would be useful only on the very off chance that someday she would have a medical problem. (“I was healthy!” she told me when I pressed her on it.) What’s indisputable is that the cancer came back in the same breast.

On my Mom’s 76th birthday, in late January, her surgeon performed a mastectomy and also removed 22 lymph nodes.

“Everyone was so nice to me!” Mom said that afternoon, groggy from the outpatient procedure. She didn’t feel as if she’d been mutilated. She felt that she’d been the star of the show.

The next week, she heard the pathology report, and it wasn’t good: cancer in all 22 nodes, officially stage 3 cancer. The initial chest X-ray showed no tumors in vital organs; a subsequent PET scan also turned up no sign that the cancer had spread beyond the nodes. “It’s curable,” Mom said, getting right to the point.

 

She’s being treated at a cancer center by an oncologist who has his hands full. Twice during the brief initial consultation, he was summoned from the small examination room by nurses dealing with emergencies.

I asked him if the cancer looked aggressive.

“It has some characteristics of being rapidly acting,” he said.

He went through the whole scenario: Chemotherapy for 18 weeks, then radiation for six weeks, then years of hormone therapy. Mom would get a port surgically implanted, then receive three cycles of cytoxan, epirubicin and fluorouracil for nine weeks, followed by three cycles of Taxotere for another nine weeks.

My mother took no notes. I later suggested that she research her disease thoroughly. But whereas I saw a problem to be solved, she saw one to be ignored to the extent humanly possible. Her doctor is the expert; she’s the plant lady. She’s going to live her normal life, and won’t spend time, mentally, in Cancerland.

Built to last

All is not as it was, of course. She’s slower since the surgery. She’s got less “steam,” she says.

She hasn’t had the easiest life, though her third marriage has lasted nearly four decades now. She was a divorced, single mother by the age of 25, working as a saleswoman at Sears while trying to take care of two semi-feral boys in an old wooden house with a leaky roof. We had some lean years, but my brother and I knew we were loved unconditionally.

My mother inherited a strong work ethic, and remarkable powers of endurance, from her forebears back on the farm in Indiana. Her family didn’t have indoor plumbing until she was 12 years old. My grandfather as a boy would plow the fields behind two Belgian draft horses, and would know it was time to come home for supper when his mother hung a sheet in the window. “Tell me about the horses, Dad,” my mother would say to my grandfather when he was deep into his 90s and clung to his murky memories as if they were handrails. He and my grandmother both lived nearly a century. So my mother is built to last, if she can just make it through her next challenge.

I can’t be sure of this, but she seems to be appreciating the world more than ever. My mother is not a society lady, isn’t a member of a club and hasn’t been to church in quite a while. But she is interested in everyone and everything. She is egalitarian down to her last molecule. When we went to Wal-Mart, it was hard to make much progress toward the kitchen section because she wanted to greet everyone along the way. She doesn’t seem to grasp the concept that the official Wal-Mart greeter is supposed to be an employee, not a customer.

Throughout her life, small pleasures have struck her as marvelous. A sandwich nicely prepared is a cause for rapture. In a field of weeds and rubbish she will see, and rejoice in the miracle of, the lone flower.

“Death holds no terror for me,” she always says.

Fear and anxiety are adaptive traits to some degree, and the perpetually sunny disposition may not invariably offer an actuarial advantage. I worry that her rose-colored glasses are blinders. But her attitude makes the process easier on everyone else. That’s a form of caregiving. It’s a gift from the sick person to those who worry about her.

I called her from Washington after her first round of chemotherapy.

“It was a nonevent!” she reported. “It lasted awhile and I got hungry, so afterward we went to Wendy’s and I had a baked potato. It was delicious!”

Chemotherapy, in time, will surely beat her up, and she’ll lose her hair, and her melodious singsong voice, her trademark feature, may weaken. But will she ever feel sorry for herself? I don’t think she’d know how.

As an analytical person, science-oriented, I find it hard to ignore the medical realities here, but my mother in her congenital sunniness is strangely persuasive. And so I have no choice but to believe her: She’s not old, and she’s not sick.

© The Washington Post Company

Reflections of Nora Ephron's Son

 

Nora Ephron

Crying is unsettling.  Especially if you are watching one of your parents do it.

 

My son hates it when I cry and has said that when I would cry all the time immediately after his father/my husband's death, he would feel this mix of emotions that he didn't want to feel and so he would walk away.  I understand it and think his reaction was perfectly normal.  He was thirteen years old and dealing with something that adults find hard to handle.  He was just trying to survive.

 

Now, at twenty two years old, my son explains his reaction this way: "When children see their parents cry, it's like a wall being broken.  It messes everything up.  I wanted you to be my Mom but when I saw you cry, it's like you weren't my Mom anymore.  You were a person and I didn't want that. I wanted my Mom."

 

It makes sense to me and I love him all the more for his insight; as painful as it was, and sometimes still is, for both of us.

 

That is why Jacob Bernstein's long and loving story about his mother, Nora Ephron, is so powerful and compassionate.

 

It's a universal story of how children feel about their parents as children, and as adults, and especially sons and their feelings about their mothers.

 

But having an accomplished, high-profile, multi-talented mother such as Nora Ephron is a unique story. And Jacob Bernstein writes it beautifully.  I knew it was a long story so I only intended to read the first page and then come back to it later, but then I couldn't stop reading it until I reached the end.

His mother is proud.  He took good notes.

Please click on this link to read Jacob Bernstein's story as it appeared in the New York Times magazine this past weekend:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/magazine/nora-ephrons-final-act.html?_r=3&hp=&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1362652331-n02tv3ThoWXX1qcUk6JoRw

Silver Linings Playbook

 

 

Bradley Cooper & Jennifer Lawrence

 

I applaud the wonderful movie, Silver Linings Playbook, which came away from the Academy Awards last night with Jennifer Lawrence winning an Oscar for Best Actress.

I had heard a lot about this movie before I recently saw it and I wasn't disappointed.  It definitely lived up to its reputation as a solid, slightly edgy, movie and it stands out because its story and its actors are courageous and hopeful.  The movie shines a light on two subjects that make people uncomfortable: grieving and mental health, and weaves these sensitive issues in a romantic-comedy-drama about families, resilience, growth and love.

 

In Silver Linings Playbook, the characters played by Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence are trying to put their lives back together and not always succeeding.  Bradley Cooper's character is dealing with a bipolar diagnosis and Jennifer Lawrence's character has just become a widow after learning her husband was hit and killed by a car. 

 

I don't want to reveal too much about the movie because you really should see it for yourself.  But I think it's safe to tell you that both of them talk directly and honestly about the ways they reacted when their traumas crashed into their lives and how those out-of-control decisions took them to places they didn't want to be but at the time, they couldn't help themselves.

 

And yet their characters never give up.

 

They are vulnerable and heartbroken and always trying to put their lives back together.  They believe there is a Silver Lining out there for each of them and this is where I fell in love with the movie.

 

Both characters put themselves out there in incredibly fearless ways given what they are dealing with because they are determined to find new lives. 

 

You see how hard it is for them to change but they keeping going at it.

 

I know it's only a movie but it can be an unexpected source of strength to watch actors or people you know go about the painful process of making changes within themselves and finding the will to take actions that, as small or as large as they might be, reveals to them and to others that they and we are stronger than we might have ever thought we were.

 

As a widow, I know how hard it is to stay positive about life but I found that staying positive can really make a difference in the decisions you make.  There were and still are plenty of times when I screw up but if I didn't believe that things were going to get better I would find myself in a sad place and I don't want that for myself or for you.

Unexpected sources of strength are within us and around us.  Dig down deep within yourself or reach out to to others.

Move forward and surprise youself.

 

 

I Think I Can

Happy Friday Everyone!!

It feels good to reach the end of a work week, especially when we have a three day week-end in front of us.  Most of us will not have to go to work on Monday since it is Inauguration Day, the day when President Obama is sworn into his second term in the White House.

 

Whether you agree with President Obama's politics or not, I think everyone would agree that it takes courage and perseverence to have a dream and then set goals necessary to try and make that dream happen.

 

Big dreams or small dreams, I wish you all the luck in the world in making them become real.  I think you can do it and that's always an important first step.  After all, you will never know what will happen unless you try.

Here are two classic children's poems to give you a boost and get you going:

TRY, TRY AGAIN
'Tis a lesson you should heed,
Try, try again;
If at first you don't succeed,
Try, try again;
Then your courage should appear,
For, if you will persevere,
You will conquer, never fear;
Try, try again.

Once or twice though you should fail,
Try, try again;
If you would at last prevail,
Try, try again;
If we strive, 'tis no disgrace
Though we do not win the race;
What should you do in the case?
Try, try again.

Time will bring you your reward,
Try, try again.
All that other folks can do,
Why, with patience, should not you?
Only keep this rule in view;
Try, try again.

--Anonymous

 

 

 

 

IT CAN BE DONE

 

The man who misses all the fun

Is he who says, "It can't be done."

In solemn pride he stands aloof

And greets each venture with reproof.

Had he the power he'd efface

The history of the human race;

We'd have no radio or motor cars,

No street lit by electric stars;

No telegraph nor telephone,

We'd linger in the age of stone.

The world would sleep if things were run

By men/women who say, "It can't be done."

 

 

Foxhole People

There are people in my life that I call  my "foxhole people."

These are the family and friends that I would want next to me were I fighting a "war" involving a personal crisis and I found that I needed support to get through my "combat situation."  I know that these people would instantly jump into the foxhole with me and they would stay with me through thick and thin until it was over.

It doesn't matter who these people are, what matters to me is that I know the people who would do this for me and that I would do the same for them.

I know that you also have at least one or two people like this in your life.  You may not call them "foxhole people" but they are people who have your back and you have theirs.

These people share certain traits.  Obviously, they're committed to you and me and they care about us.  But I think it would also be fair to say that these people are emotionally resilient.

According to Joan Borysenko, PhD, and a noted lecturer on health and spirituality, emotionally resilient people believe there is a higher purpose for even the most painful event.  That doesn't mean that they think it's good to have problems, it's more about the ability they have to see that something positive can come out of a negative event.

Think about this idea.  When something bad happens in your life, is it the end of the world for you? What is your usual response to emotional stress?  Do you immediately think the worst?  Emotionally resilient people do recognize that even though things may initially look and feel bad, some good can come from even the most traumatic events.  Resilience can be developed within yourself.  If you actively want to become more resilient, it is possible.

Borysenko is a former cancer cell biologist at Harvard Medical School and she is author of Minding The Body, Mending The Mind and A Woman's Book of Life.  She has spent decades studying emotional resilience and here is a short synopisis of her journey:

"When my dad killed himself in 1975, I felt not only grief but also terrible guilt.  As a cancer biologist, I felt I should have done a better job of helping him endure the difficult treatment process he was undergoing.

But I refused to give into despair.  I told myself that if I could help even one other family avert such a tragedy, my father's death would have meaning. 

I quit my job at the lab and retrained as a behavioral medicine specialist.  Then I founded a mind/body clinic at one of Harvard Medical School's teaching hospitals, beginning a new career helping patients and their families cope physically and spiritually with life-threatening illnesses."

Borysenko also recounts that a friend of hers also went through something similiar when her son died in a car accident.  To survive the incredible pain of losing her son, her friend forced herself to think about other families and what she could do or how she could give something positive in her son's memory.  She now volunteers as a support group facilitator, giving emotional support to other parents who have suffered the tragedy of losing a child.

It is the meaning that we give to awful events in our life that allows us to endure the deep pain and come out on the other side of it a stronger, more resilient person.  While we cannot control what happens to us, we can work on our response to those events.

Moving Forward With Others

Award winning actresses Viola Davis (left) and Octavia Spencer (right)
in a scene from the Academy Award nominated film, "The Help"

"The person who tries to live alone

will not succeed as a human being.

His heart withers if it does not answer

another heart.

His mind shrinks away if he hears

only the echoes of his own thoughts

and finds no other inspiration."

          -- Pearl S. Buck

Gabby Giffords

Photo by CBSNews.com

If you google the word resilient, you'll be reading about Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-AZ.

Resilience is the ability to recover from a crisis, a dramatic life change or even failure.  Some people are born with resilience and others develop it. 

Resilience is when life hands you an awful situation and you turn it into an opportunity to learn or develop something about yourself.

Resilience is digging down deep within ourselves and finding the resources to cope with a changed life. 

To me, this is the essence of Gabby Giffords.

One year ago tomorrow, Giffords was speaking at a constituent event in Tucson, AZ, when 22-year-old Jared Loughner shot her in the head and then continued to shoot 18 others in the crowd.  Six people died, including a nine-year-old girl and a federal judge. 

Giffords has spent the past year on an unbelievable mental and physical journey learning again how to talk, walk and survive the emotional trauma of being shot at close range.  I can't imagine how hard and frustrating it has been for her to get to where she is today.  And she still has work in front of her.  But when you watch her on television, you have no sense of any of the difficulty she has experienced.  I think she has the most peaceful smile and I am inspired by her determination.

With her husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, the two make a forbidable team.  They are scheduled to mark the one-year anniversary of the shooting during a candlelight vigil on Sunday, January 8 at the University of Arizona.  If you want to know what true love is then read this post from Maria Shriver's blog written by Mark Kelly about what he has learned from his incredible wife:

Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope

By Mark Kelly

Our spouses are often our teachers, guiding us in ways that may be clear only in retrospect.

I have been struck by this realization again and again in the year since my wife, Gabby, was almost killed in an assassination attempt. As she struggled to regain her ability to speak, I became her student, remembering vital things she taught me years ago.

At first, she couldn’t say anything at all, which left her scared and stuck inside herself. I remember one particularly rough day, about a month after the shooting, when I came into Gabby’s room and found her sitting in her wheelchair, tears running down her face. She was hyperventilating, absolutely panicked.

Through her tears, Gabby motioned with her left hand, waving it by her mouth. It didn’t take me long to figure out what was wrong. She had tried to speak and no words came out. She was making some sounds, consonants and vowels, but no words. She cried and I cried with her. All I could do was reassure her. “It’ll get better,” I said. “I promise you.”

By mid-February 2011, six weeks after the shooting, she had begun formulating words, but they were often delivered haltingly or incorrectly. She got stuck on random words. No matter what she meant to say, the same word, “chicken,” often came out in a burst: “Chicken, chicken, chicken.”

For Gabby, it was terribly frustrating. And for those of us who loved her, it was dispiriting to see a woman who had been so articulate reduced to grasping for syllables. But in my role as a caregiver, I found myself buoyed by recalling Gabby’s voice from earlier times. I’d recommend that any spouse dealing with a traumatic situation reach back into the past for a meaningful memory. It can offer perspective, comfort – and a way forward.

In my case, I had never been a patient man. I’d always been a go-getter, focused on “the urgency of now.” By contrast, Gabby knew well the value of patience. As a state senator and then a U.S. congresswoman, she’d let her constituents in Arizona say whatever they needed to say without interrupting them. She interacted easily with everyone, young and old, able-bodied and infirm.

After she was injured, friends and family would often interrupt her, saying the words they thought she meant to say. They were trying to help, but I saw this only added to Gabby’s sense of powerlessness.

And so it was helpful to me to think back to a day in 2006, after my second space flight as an astronaut, when Gabby and I got to have lunch with the legendary British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking. Dr. Hawking is paralyzed due to a form of Lou Gehrig’s disease, and it takes him an excruciatingly long time to say anything.

That day, I quickly gave up trying to converse with him. But Gabby was just incredible. She intuitively knew what to do. She kneeled down in front of his wheelchair and said, “Dr. Hawking, how are you today?” Then she stared into his eyes and waited patiently and silently. He took ten minutes to reply, “I’m fine. How are you?”

She could have kneeled there for an hour, waiting for him to answer.

My memory of that encounter helped me understand how I’d need to interact with Gabby during her recovery. It’s almost like something out of The Twilight Zone. It was as if Gabby was giving me a message back in 2006: “Watch me. I will be your teacher. Someday you’ll have to be patient with me and this is how you’ll need to do it.”

At the time Gabby was shot, I was preparing to serve as commander of the next shuttle mission. Gabby was starting her third term in Congress. Had she not been shot on January 8, 2011, she was scheduled to undergo fertility treatment on January 10. We hoped she’d be pregnant soon.

Gabby had such a rich life before she was injured that one of her speech therapists, an aphasia expert, recently asked her: “Given all the pain and sadness, are you glad you survived?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Gabby said.

The therapist, Nancy Estabrooks, was struck by her lack of hesitation. “If you consider how much she had going for her, and how it all stopped abruptly,” Dr. Estabrooks said, “it’s not hard to imagine someone in that situation feeling suicidal, or losing the will to live.”

But again, Gabby was my teacher. I saw that her commitment to recover was clearly rooted in her innate optimism, her relentless drive, and in her relationship with those she loved. She’s doing so much better now. Her comprehension is 100%, she’s speaking in sentences, and she’s worked incredibly hard to keep improving. She spends forty hours a week in four kinds of therapy: physical, speech, occupational and music.

She’d like to return to Congress, and she knows that therapy is her only way to make that happen.

Meanwhile, just as Gabby has taught me so much, I’ve tried to find ways to help her see a path back to herself.

November 10th was our fourth wedding anniversary, and I surprised Gabby by inviting a cellist from the Houston Symphony to serenade us during dinner at our home. I put a white tablecloth on the kitchen table, lit candles and served a steak dinner. As the cellist played Bach, I explained to Gabby that the musician had suffered a traumatic brain injury after a 2009 motorcycle accident, and has since returned to work. “Look how beautifully he plays,” I said, hoping to help Gabby imagine her own continued recovery.

Like so many couples, Gabby and I have embraced the idea that we are each other’s teachers -- and that the lessons continue every day.

We’re excited by all the possibilities that await us in 2012, and by the things we’ll learn together along the way.

********
Mark Kelly was a captain in the United States Navy when he commanded the final mission of space shuttle Endeavour in May 2011. His wife, Gabrielle Giffords has represented Arizona’s 8th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2007. Their new joint memoir is titled Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope.
You can purchase Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope at Amazon, Barnes & Noble or wherever books are sold.

http://www.mariashriver.com/blog/2012/01/gabby-story-courage-and-hope

Resilience

Resilience is the capacity to bounce back from change, failure or trauma.  Some people are lucky enough to be born with tons of relience and others of us constantly work on it.

If you are looking for insight into the boundaries of resilience, then please read, "Unbroken," by Laura Hillenbrand.  You may remember Laura Hillenbrand for the exceptional research and writing she gave us in her first book, "Seabiscuit."  Hillenbrand's new book, "Unbroken," is the compelling story of Louis Zamperini, a talented and ferociously competitive runner who participated in the Berlin Olympics and is a World War II hero.  He is still alive and kickin' at 94 years young.

I have always been fascinated by the way people handle traumatic or stressful situations because their reaction to it can be revealing.  You may see a side of that person that you haven't seen before and might not want to see again.  But then again you might see a side of someone that helped you through a bad time and you always want to be around that again.  Why is it then, or maybe what is it, in a person's DNA that sends them a signal telling them to maintain their cool while others loose it?  What is it in another person's DNA that jumpstarts a meltdown when they are asked to take on the smallest responsibility?  How does a person keep it together when their circumstances are totally against them?

In "Unbroken," you'll discover that Louis Zamperini is the essence of resilience.

Without giving away anything in the book, Zamperini's Army Air Force bomber crashes and sinks into the Pacific Ocean in May 1943.  This is the beginning of his nightmare and also the beginning of the reader's journey into Zamperini's endurance of thirst, starvation and mental and physical torture.  Here is a glimpse of Laura Hillenbrand's beautiful writing and insight into Zamperini's resolve:

"Few societies treasured dignity, and feared humiliation, as did the Japanese, for whom a loss of honor could merit suicide.  This is likely one of the reasons why Japanese soldiers in World War II debased their prisoners with such zeal, seeking to take from them that which was most painful and destructive to lose.  On Kwajalein, Louie and Phil learned a dark truth known to the doomed in Hitler's death camps, the slaves of the American South, and a hundred other generations of betrayed people.  Dignity is essential to human life as water, food and oxygen.  The stubborn retention of it, even in the face of extreme physical hardship, can hold a man's soul in his body long past the point at which the body should have surrenered to it.  The loss of it can carry a man off as surely as thirst, hunger, exposure, and asphyxiation, and with greater cruelty.  In places like Kwajalein, degradation could be as lethal as a bullet."

Rather than seeing himself as a victim of his circumstances, Louie dug way down deep into himself and found reserves of emotional and mental relience that he must have never known that he had to survive the brutal conditions he was forced to live in.  His journey is truly inspirational.

I salute you, Louie.  You taught me that you have to stay in the game and you can't give up.