Strong II

"The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places."
--Ernest Hemingway

Some days ago on this blog, I wrote about a new book out called "Strong at the Broken Places" by one Richard Cohen. He has MS and is married to Meredith Vieira, the newscaster. I just bought the book, and here's a sampling from the intro: "Chronic conditions do not resolve themselves. Unlike terminal illnesses, there is no high drama with these diseases. They are not sexy, and are little noticed or understood by an unknowing public that would prefer not to think about them. ... Hemingway had it right. If the world is not the enemy, neither is it our friend. In the end, no matter who surrounds us, we travel alone. Our friends and loved ones are there, providing an infrastructure of love and support. But courage must be drawn from within. Let the world see us as we see ourselves and have the faith to permit us to do it our way."
I don't necessarily see it as he does (the part about the world not being our friend), but I'm also very aware I'm not in his shoes.
The book's powerful so far. Cohen spent time with five people who suffer from the following: ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease); bi-polar disorder; non-Hodgkin's lymphoma; Chrohn's disease; and muscular dystrophy. It's so far clear that each person's--what? soul?--comes through, in the midst of chronic pain and struggle.
Photo by DePauw University