The Keeper of Happy Endings

by Barbara Davis

understand that part, not wanting the world to see your sadness. You think you’re the only one, singled out by fate to suffer. You’re not, of course, but it feels that way. The rest of the world is moving forward, living their lives and dreaming their dreams, while you’re frozen, forever suspended in that terrible moment when your world stopped turning and the ground suddenly fell away. You exist in a void, where everything’s empty and endlessly dark, until little by little the light becomes unbearable.

There’s a particular brand of sympathy that comes with shared sorrow. An invisible thread that connects us, wound to wound.

We must therefore be wary of the echoes of past generations and guard against making their echoes our own. Ours is not to repeat the past but to learn from it. —Esmée