In the Midst of Winter

by Isabel Allende

In her mother’s last days, Lucia understood that death was not an end, was not the absence of life, but a powerful oceanic wave of clear, luminous water that was carrying her off to another dimension.

For the first time in her life, she felt her own soul as an incandescent light within her, sustaining her, an eternal light that could not be affected by the urgencies of existence.

She knew the strange healing power words had from what she had written and discussed concerning her brother Enrique’s fate—how important it was to share one’s pain and discover that others too had their fair share of it, that lives are often alike and feelings similar.

life always asserts itself, but does so more fully if we accept it without resisting.