Adrian.

First, my sorrow of the loss of your fiancé. It is heartbreaking. Second, I am 71. It has been much longer for me to see adversity as an ultimate friend. I admire your young wisdom.

As a clinical psychologist I specialized in working with women with breast cancer. I think that with adversity, we need to witness it for each other--not slobber, not pity, not try to solve it, but cut through the intense isolation. One day I was seeing an unwilling patient. All I knew was that she had advanced met. breast cancer. She sat in angry silence for the first 15-- which is a long time.

Finally, these words spilled out of my mouth.

"Sometimes Hell has no words...You just have to take the tour." With that, she began to unbutton her blouse. She unwrapped the ace bandage that revealed one of the worst things I've seen. I wanted to say, "Oh no I'm not that kind of doctor. But I knew she knew that. We sat there with her wounds both visceral and psychic. At the end of the time, she said she wouldn't be back and wished that I was a priest. I agreed.

(it was in my first book Undercurrents about my profound depression--adversity times 2) In a speech I just faked it, but said one thing that has stayed with me

One of the great dividends of darkness is an increased sensitivity to the light...Love is strongest when suffering is mixed with joy

martha

Thanks for your unflinching address of such an ambivalent issue