My Friend Sally

 Sally amazes me. 

For real. 

I've never seen someone carry the things in her life that she's been asked to bear and seen them do it with such grace. If ever there was an example of how to shoulder pain with grace and keep on saying yes to life and hope, it would be her. 

I'll tell you why. 

Sally had to face pain at a fairly young age. Her sister died unexpectedly while still in her teens, leaving Sally as the only remaining daughter and child of her loving and devoted parents. She went on to marry Tom and have two beautiful children - a son and a daughter. She poured herself into her profession as a high school English teacher as well as a big part of her church and local community. She and Tom did a lot to help her mom's business and also raise their kids well. And life was pretty good... until it wasn't. 

First, Tom got sick with cancer and then sadly, passed away. Suddenly, she found herself a widow with two young adult children and a life without her loving husband - a massive change for anyone in her position. 

Then, her mom Joy was diagnosed with terminal cancer shortly after, and it fell to Sally and her dad to hold things together and support Joy in her gradual home going journey. She passed away less than two years after Tom. 

Then her dad Jim was diagnosed with cancer about a year later and passed away. 

Within less than four years, Sally had literally said goodbye to her entire family except for her two kids. How on earth she was able to still open her hands and believe that God is still good was beyond me. Even though I've walked through my share of sorrow, nothing I've gone through could ever touch the level of loss Sally has been required to go through, and I wondered how she would cope and what she would do next. Turns out, Sally bravely chose to keep on teaching for a few years, then retired. Then she began private tutoring and turned her parents old place into a short-term rental space. She continued to be part of her children's lives as much as they wanted and to involve herself in her church. She's taken multiple international trips for church mission and personal reasons. Basically, life went forward. Not on, but forward. 

I've watched Sally come alongside others in their own grief as we've attended memorial services for mutual friends, and I know it has to be hard. To re-live that feeling of saying goodbye all over again. To know better than most what those left behind will be facing. And yet, I watch her pass out hugs and keep going on, one courageous step at a time. And it floors me every single time. Not that her strength is what it's all about, although her choosing to go forward is certainly commendable. But that her leaning into God's strong arms is what's carried her through. 

Grief is an unwelcome but inevitable guest that comes to visit all of us at some point in our lives. Some of us experience more often than others, but it always finds its way to our souls in due time. And when it comes, we each face the decision whether to fight it or to befriend it. To fight it will always leave us wrestling and unable to make peace with the loss we have endured. But to befriend it will allow it to draw us closer to the One who Himself is acquainted with grief  - a Savior of sorrows who also shed tears at a grave and stands with us in the pain we are facing. 

Sally's life is proof that grief doesn't have to be the end of us. While it may bring the close of a chapter we deeply love and ache to say farewell too, it can also be the beginning of a new normal that still holds the potential to be good. It obviously won't be the same as the one we're leaving behind, but that doesn't mean that it can't offer a possibility of its own for healing, renewal, faith, and love. Sally has never remarried and I don't know if she ever will. Life looks drastically different than it did just a decade ago. But she will tell you that it's meaningful, still sweet. She has wonderful people surrounding her and she still has much to offer the world in the years she has left. And she is grateful. 

May we all choose to be the same even when pain has wrecked our hearts in two. 

The world needs more people like Sally who shoulder their sorrows with grace and make the bold choice to stay open to life.