Brave

An email from a friend just now: The cancer she's been fighting for nearly a year is in retreat.

It was frightening news back when—all of us afraid for our friend, who promised a fight. No vitriol, no self-pity, not a moment when she asked, Why me? Her fight was something else altogether—faith in her doctors, strength absorbed from her garden, the deliberate welcoming in of family and friends, a trip to France, a trip to the seaside, three seasons spent steeping herself in goodness and thinking of the goodness first—not the operations, not the chemo, not the radiation, not the prognosis.

She sent photos of her adventures. She asked after our own travels, our concerns.

So that those of us who had the privilege of working with her would say, among ourselves, If only we had some small fraction of her in us.

She was on our minds, all the time. She was always there, in our conversations.

And today, her news.

Sometimes there are miracles. Sometimes we only stand back and say, Thank you.