People had relationship problems, problems with aging parents; someone’s child had a very serious illness; someone else was dealing with a difficult kind of loss. And yet everyone said some variation of “I’m pretty much all right” or “I’m pretty content.” And it didn’t mean that they weren’t struggling with what was happening to them. It did not mean that they had transcended their stories and that they were fine because they felt no pain from them. They were struggling and often in quite a lot of pain and concern, but still, they were all right.
