Before any of this ever happened, I thought I knew what it was to be grateful.

This is the kind of thing that happens to other people.

It doesn’t happen to you.

You have things to do.

Or, not do.

You are certainly, most definitely, not in the market for a tragedy.

For an upheaval, for the roar of the earth as it cracks and gives way beneath your feet.

No, that is what happens to someone else.

Until it happens to you.

We are powerless to prevent it, but we are not left powerless.

Tragedy has one redeeming quality: it’s ability to highlight the very best in us and the very best in others.

Our happy is happier.

Our sadness is more poignant.

Our lives are more intense in every way lived in contrast. 

Nora McInerny Purmort