Prelude: Resilience

Before I write further posts, I want to mention something that happened 10 days before my original operation.
A close neighbour of mine lost his life recently, leaving his wife and adult disabled twin daughters behind. As I visited him in hospital I recognized that I was looking at the face of a dying man. I had seen similar before.
Sure enough, shortly after he crossed over the bridge.
His family are all in varying degrees of vulnerability and I happened to pass them in the village after they got off the bus from hearing the news at the hospital. What I witnessed was raw and unadulterated grief in all its messiness. It was all I could do was to sit with them on the village bench, just holding them while great violent torrents of grief stricken waves washed over them.
Eventually after time, the grief slowly ebbed and finally they were ready to go home. Tea was made in the best typical British fashion and as more tears were shed, I sat, just being until light turned to dark and more people came through until I felt they were safe to be left.
Not wishing to make another families tragedy about me, what took place though was relevant to the stories of now because it taught me some valuable lessons about human resilience.
I popped in everyday after that until my operation day. Each day, Through them, I witnessed human resilience get a little stronger.
I watched and heard other people around them come together to help support an extremely vulnerable family. Communities working together for the better.
Today was his funeral. I got my outfit out but as the hours ticked on by today, I found myself struggling more and more until in the end I made a decision that I would not go.
I know the family have a long way ahead to heal from broken hearts. But I have also seen strength in them that nobody could have possibly have foreseen and it got me thinking that it is sometimes in the biggest adversities that we finally begin to shine our true light.
Lesson number eight. Never underestimate the power of human resilience.