Life has a way of delivering lessons in many forms.
They come with the birth of a child, with the loss of one’s job, when your country calls you to duty in a time of war, when you find the person with whom you want to spend the rest of your life.
Yep, I’ve experienced all of that.
None of those particular lessons prepared me for the lesson I am learning now about the challenge of a serious medical illness. The love of my life is facing that challenge. That’s the worst of it. The best of it is that she is far from alone. She has her family standing with her.
I am part of the guardian corps that is standing firm with her. We have our sons and their loved ones. We have our siblings and their loved ones, too. We have legions of friends who are beginning to gather around us … even though many of them live far away; we feel their love over the vast distance.
These lessons are superseding everything else right at this moment. The political turmoil? The bickering between Democrats and Republicans? Fights over an ex-POTUS’s tax returns? It’s all crap!
These lessons arrived unexpectedly, to be sure, but oh brother we knew it when they got here.
They will test our resolve, but we have no choice but to respond and to take them as seriously as any lesson we ever have received.
It is a major chapter in our life story.