Until I Say Good-Bye: My Year of Living with Joy

by Susan Spencer-Wendel

Love is agreeing, even when you don’t understand.

“Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

But serious illness changes you. Or simply reveals who you are.

the parent years. That phase of life where days are interminable and years are over in an instant.

“This is the best possible outcome of the worst possible scenario.

For old souls are wiser souls. Wise to what’s going on around them.

Accept the life that comes. Work and strive, but accept. Don’t force the world to be the one you dream. The reality is better.

Do not pine for things you cannot have, I thought, for that is the way to the loony bin.

Don’t fear the alligator in the canal if you do not see it there. Fearing the possible is no way to live.

I was furious. I daydreamed about how I could hurt them as much as they’d hurt me. But what would that accomplish? Only engender more bitterness and prove me an ass as well.

Focus not on people who let you down, but on those who lift you up.