Depression: Who Really Cares Outside a Small Circle of Friends?

Decades ago, in the late 60s and early 70s, there was a coffee house (not to be confused with all the coffee shops that litter our streets in our current culture where people buy lattes and work on their laptops) in Dayton, Ohio called the Lemon Tree.  Next to an small theatre which showed arty films.  Both places attracted the arty people, hippies, folk music buffs.

It was there that I heard Phil Ochs perform - a folk singer/songwriter well known for his protest sons - back in the 60s.  I've forgotten everything he sang EXCEPT one sone which rang so true with me called "Outside A Small Circle of Friends" which was based on the murder of a woman in New York City named Kitty Genovese in 1964.  Over more than a half hour period of time, this poor woman was stabbed repeatedly while those in the area who heard who screams did nothing.  Thirty-seven people in all have been identified who heard the screams - and did nothing.  No phone calls to the police or emergency personnel.  No attempts to stop the attack.  Nothing.  Kitty's attacker even left her for a bit and then returned to finish her off in the hallway of her apartment building.  Yet people, the bystanders - did nothing.

Phil Ochs' song starts and ends with these words: 

Oh, look outside the window/There's a wlman being grabbed/They've dragged her to the bushes/And now she's being stabbed.

Maybe we should call the cops/And try to stop the pain/But Monopoly is so much fun/I'd hate to blow the game

And I'm sure/It wouldn't interest anybody/Outside a small circle of friends. (refrain)

With the words:  And I'm sure it wouldn't interest anybody outside of a small circle of friends.

I read in the paper in the mid-70s that Phil Ochs had committed suicide by jumping out of a window. 

It was a different world back then.  No 911 - at least when Kitty Genovese was murdered. No PCs - or Apple.  No internet.  No laptops or wifi.   Computers were so big that they took up entire buildings and you had to have a degree to run them.  No social media. I think his tragic death went back largely unnoticed except for small articles in the paper and a small circle of friends.

These 13 words "And I'm sure it wouldn't interest anybody outside a small circle of friends" have stayed with me all these years, and I've often felt their impact in my struggles with depression, my experience up close and personal with workplace bullying and my subsequent journey towards recovery.

*******

The news this week has been full of the suicide of well known comedian Robin Williams who suffered from depression.  Instantly, articles started cropping up on social media. Twitter and Facebook started to be full of links not only to Robin Williams, the person and actor, but also about depression.  What it is. What it isn't.  How it affects people.  What to say. What not to say.  Etc.

Robin Williams was a great comedian whose humour affected many, many people.  Yet, he apparently he lived a life of quiet desperation.  A life where he was so tormented and so bereft of hope for a better, more hopeful tomorrow that he committed what I deem the ultimate act of despair:  suicide.  Just like Phil Ochs did all those years ago.

Same phenomenon.  Same conclusion that life was not worth living.  Same outcome - the death of a very talented performer.

There are many of us on this planet who live lives of quiet desperation.  Unnoticed except outside a small circle of friends.

There are many of us who yearn for more, who struggle with depression and hopelessness, who just want to know that someone cares.  Who just want an outstretched hand to reach out to keep us from drowning in the waves of despair which keep washing over us.

The point I want to make here is that many of us - and be us I don't mean just people like me who have been traumatized by workplace abuse but also the population at large - live lives of quiet desperation.  Lives filled with acquaintances perhaps but no real friends.  Busy lives.  Even productive lives.  But at the core of our very being something seems to be missing.

That connection where we feel that we are really valued not for what we do, but for who we are.  Even when we are down for the count.

Often during this lonely sojourn on the way back from workplace abuse, I've felt lost and alone. (My struggles against the temptation of suicide are written in a previous post:  "The Danger of Suicide".)

Those words "outside a small circle of friends" seems to fit my life so much.

But yet, I remind myself time and again that I. Have. That. Small. Circle. Of. Friends. and that they are valuable, very valuable.  They alone are the reason I'm still here.  They alone are the reason that I haven't joined the ranks of those who have given up, thrown in the towel and committed the ultimate act of despair:  suicide.

They may be a small circle but they are a circle, and they are friends.  I value them.

Thank you for being there with me on the journey.  I'd rather have a small circle of committed people covering my back and cheering me on the journey than a larger group of less committed people.

Until tomorrow....

Workplace Abuse - The Continuing Experience

Twilight to me is a magical time.  A time when sunbeams dance on the water.  A time when the raucous sounds of the day are replaced by a quietness, a peace.  These are the times I love to walk by the river, (ever-present) camera in hand drinking in the quietness, the peace, the beauty.  Enjoying the serenity, letting it sink deep into my troubled soul.  Soothing away the emotional aches and pains at least for a while of the journey.

The end was drawing near.  At the beginning I felt hope.  As the process of bullying aka psychological harassment aka small "h" harassment continued to inexorably progress slowly ever so slowly like lumbering heavy duty equipment demolishing whatever is in its path, hope was slowly replaced by despair.

The meeting we were to have at the beginning of the new year, did not happen.  I was never given a chance to ask questions as in was my pay raise included in the new contract.  When it came time to signing, I was called into her office at the end of the day without warning.  The contract was covered except for the signature part.  Still in a state of surprise by the abrupt, unexpected meeting, I signed.  Days later, it dawned on me that maybe there was a reason it was covered.  Maybe there was a reason it was done on the fly.  Maybe.

I think my feeling not only the day I misguidedly signed that contract but also on a consistent basis was akin to that of a deer caught in the headlights.  Frozen.  Staring.  Caught by surprise.

My supervisor was constantly criticizing me for what she perceived as my deficiencies.  She completely devalued the cross-training I did have i.e. with inventory and focused on what I did not have.  Yet, I often wondered if she even had a clue as to the things I was doing?  The value I did have for the department as a whole?

Ironically, during this same time frame when I was constantly being devalued by one person, the supervisor, I was showing great value in other ways to other people - ironically manager type people. One I taught how to do returns when it became part of her job - a part she was never trained on.  She told me later, that I had helped her greatly in her first days on the job with my pleasant attitude and my help.

BUT it was not good enough for my supervisor.

Another manager who was in charge of trucking charges, etc. also sought my advice and help on different issues.  She was a manager, I was in an entry-level position.  She expressed gratitude for my help.

BUT ... it was not good enough for my supervisor.

Somehow, I also became the one who ordered the supplies for the office and kept the supply cabinet full.  Ditto when the fax machine was full of papers, I would empty it and put things in the correct employee's slot.  Thus quietly making everyone's life a little easier.

BUT ... it was not good enough.

I often wondered if my supervisor had any idea of the work I did quietly in that office?  Did she really know?  More importantly, did she care?

What was more important to her?  Her agenda?  Or the well-being of the office?

I often wondered.

Towards the end of my contract, the dreaded annual evaluation came up.  That would have been fearful enough EXCEPT the department changed it that year.  Things that would have reflected positive on me were deleted.  Things that reflected negatively were added.

By that time, I was a mess emotionally.  Insecure.  Confused.

My lifeline was my faith.  My guidebook was my Bible.  Those were the two things that kept me tied to any sense of stability.  That and the constant support of my family.  My neighbours were aware too of what was happening in the workplace - and they were concerned.  There really wasn't much anyone could do.

As the time shortened and the stress became brutal, I felt like walking out.

Many people have asked since then:  "Why didn't you?  It was very clear that they wanted you to, so why didn't you?"

Maybe because I'm contrary and wasn't about to do what they wanted me to.

Maybe because I value integrity as part of my commitment to following God in my life.

Maybe because I'm not a quitter.

The biggest reason though has to do with the integrity issue.  I had signed a contract.  And I intended to honour that contract to the bitter end if need be.  Whether they wanted me to or not was beside the issue.

Also, in the back of my mind, I realized that part of their strategy would be to say that I was not "a fit" for them because I was "unstable" if I were to simply walk out.  I would have validated them - and I had no intention of doing so.

I'm also stubborn.

Maybe too stubborn for my own good.

In those moments, before the sun makes its final descent for the days, the seagulls come out on the river, flying here and there.  Flying low.  Diving into the water.  Are they feasting?  Or are they just enjoying their ability to fly?  The ducks below them are also serenely floating, maybe enjoying some juicy duck gossip or just relaxing after a long day on the river.

Thoughts on Forgiveness in the Journey

St Jacobs (Ontario) Millrace trail

Being the proud recipent of a "deranged mind", my thoughts can go anywhere and everywhere.  Sometimes going off on different tangets in completely opposite directions at the same time.  From TV shows and personality traits to ... well ... the issue I'm struggling with (again) today:  forgiveness.

Forgiveness keeps cropping up in my journey.  I can't seem to escape it - no matter how hard I try.  Every particle of my being screams for justice.  I want justice.  Like a two-year old pounding his fists on the table or feet on the floor repeating the same phrase over and over in a loud voice.  A voice that will not be denied.  I WANT JUSTICE.

BUT....

There's always a but, isn't there?  Besides the one we sit on, I mean.

As a faith-based woman, the teachings in the Bible are my rulebook.  They're simple; just not easy.

The concept of forgiveness is simple.  Forgive those who have hurt you.  Those who have despitefuly used you.

BUT ... it's not easy.

Forgiveness goes against everything we believe in.

Again, we want justice.  Sometimes we want revenge.  We want the person punished for the hurt they have given us.

Whether it was spreading gossip leading to slander leading to defamation of character or something else, we want the person confronted with their wrongdoing.

Over and over in my mind, the scenario inflicted on me plays out.  The scenario that caused two back-to-back stress breakdowns with subsequent psychiatric injury.  Workplace abuse.  Verbal abuse.  You name it, it probably happened.  Although I was told that this was all in  my imagination and that it never happened.  I was accused of having perceptions and assumptions.  Eventually, I was forced to resign.

Every step forward seems to entail two - or more - backwards.  Little ones forward.  Gigantic ones backward.  Or so it seems.

The current step forward - learning about and how to use Social Media effectively through an on-line course is a case in point.  Exploring what I'm learning, I find people from different parts of my journey on the net.  Accidentally.  And that brings everything back to the forefront of my mind once again.  It feels as though it just happened yesterday although several years have passed.  It feels like it will never go away.  That I will never be able to leave the past behind and go forward into the future - a future that does not contain any of the people involved.

This is where forgiveness comes in.  The only way I can ever hope to leave the past behind is to leave it on the altar of forgiveness.  To forgive each and every person involved for their part in what happened:  bully and bystander alike.

Sometimes it feels like a grocery list of people to forgive should be tacked up on my refrigerator.  Sometimes when I'm praying, I feel like I'm merely reciting a list.

 Sometimes it feels like an impossible task.  Sometimes it feels like an unfair task.  Why should I forgive these people?  They're the wrong doers!  Which is exactly why they need to be forgiven.  Because they did wrong.  We don't need to forgive the one who blesses us.  Who supports us and holds us up.  They don't need my forgiveness.  Gratitude, definitely.  It's the ones who hurt me who need to be forgiven by me.  Not because they deserve it.  They don't.   They need it because I need to let go of what happened, to let go of any control over the situation.  Not to see them free.  But to set me free.

For my well-being.  For my sanity. For my eventual recovery.

I like the way Belleruth Naparstek in her book Invisible Heroes:  Survivors of Trauma and How they Heal describes the benefits of forgiveness.  Coming from a purely practical, psychological framework, she writes:  "The point for the survivor is to forgive in order to free up the energy that has been bound up in anger and resentment, and has therefore been inaccessible.  The goal of forgiveness is to gain a fuller, more vibrant life.  It is a form of kindness to the self" (page 263).

She writes concisely in one and a half pages what has taken me years to internalize in my process.

Once again, I surrender my right for justice.  My (perceived) rights for revenge.  I surrender them to the One who has walked with me through every step, every incident, every gut-wrenching step of the way.

The One who knows me intimately - and loves me anyway.

Forgiveness is usually not a one-time deal.  Often, it is a process with the accompanying forward and backward movements inherent in the journey.

But I am convinced that one day it will come.

Until then, I continue to choose to follow the path of forgiveness.

The path of most resistance.

For my sake.

Same day - same path
Further along

Words/Labels

I've learned a lot of new words as I've walked through this period of my life.  My favorite being the euphemism "in transition".  In plain language:  unemployed.  But hey! it sounds positive, so let's go for it!

No purpose for this picture - except to brighten your reading pleasure

And while we're at it:  I was not fired, I was terminated - or dismissed.  Two euphemisms for the price of one.

Words to make something unpalatable look, sound or feel better.

While we're at it, there are other terms, not euphemisms, which I've recently learned which describe my situation:  stress breakdown, psychiatric injury, hypervigilence, reactive depression, complex PTSD - to name a few.

Then there's the terms the original specialist (another euphemism - this one for psychiatrist) used to diagnose my condition during the crisis phase from the stressful situation:  bi-polar disorder and mixed personality disorder.

Words.  Labels.  In our world, in our minds, we need to put things into neat, little boxes and label them.  We want the world to make sense.  We want everything to fall into order.

In short we want to make things that we cannot understand, understandable.

We want to make sense out of the senseless.  Put order into the disordered.

As I walk through this journey of recovery, I keep trying to make sense of the non-sensical.  I want the why questions to be answered.  But there are no answers.  None that can take away the pain anyway.

If I'm to be labelled by those involved in the former stressful situation, by the medical community, by those who faithfully walk with and beside me and, ultimately, by myself, I would pick the terms stress breakdown, psychiatric injury and reactive depression to describe what happened to me as a result of the severely stressful situation, where I'm at now and what I'm recovering from.  What I'm dealing with on a daily basis.  These terms are for conditions which are not mental illnesses.  Rather, they are cause and effect situations.  Cause (severely stressful situation) = Effect (stress breakdown, psychiatric injury, et al).  Simple.  And they don't have the negative connotations of bi-polar, etc.  Ironically, I never had the symptoms of bi-polar.

Yet these conditions are not always that easy to recognize.  Especially when one is in an overtaxed, overused and understaffed medical system.  Where it takes months to see a specialist and then the specialist is so overburdened and overworked that he spends as little time with the patient as it takes to "diagnose" the problem and prescribe medication.

So it all boils down to words.  Semantics.  Sometimes euphemisms.  Assumptions.  Perceptions.  Based on who we are, how we think.

This is an interesting blog for me because as I write it, my mind wanders all over the map.  Never staying at one place or one topic for long.  In short, it mirrors the path I've been walking through since early 2011.  All over the map.   Never in one place, at once thought, for long.  Always changing.  As research uncovers something else.  As therapy progresses.  As life events unfold and intrude - sometimes like a bomb exploding and causing re-injury to the fragile soul.  Always changing.

An "all-over-the-map-journey".  Kind of like a round the world trip - except you don't get to board a plane or boat and go to exotic locales.

The On-going Journey Towards Recovery

After coping with and learning from a bad experience which lasted over four years, I finally hit the brick wall.  I could no longer go on.  I realized the futility of even trying.  I had a stress breakdown.  I suffered psychiatric injury.  Now, a year or so later, I cope daily with the physical affects of latent stress on a daily basis.

My on-going journey comes with no easy, 1-2-3 instructions for healing.  It's a progressive, in-my-face, daily journey.

As far as depression goes, there are two theories for healing.  One is to do absolutely nothing.  Lie in bed all day if you want to.  Play solitaire in your room if you want to.   Etc.  The other theory is to try to keep to life as normal as possible.  Wake up at the usual time.  Perform the usual tasks.  Do the usual activities.

I always ascribed to the second theory.  Until I hit the brick wall this past fall - about six months or more after the original stress breakdown.

At the time, I was cognizant that I'd had a breakdown of sorts.

Stress breakdowns, psychiatric injury, reactive depression, complex PTSD do not come with manuals.  There are no simple instructions to follow.  No magic wands to wave.  No pills to make it all better.   To make it go away.

Does this mean there is no hope for the victim?  Recovery not possible?

No!

It simply means that each victim's path is unique to that individual.  Only with strong support can the individual even hope to make it through.

With a nightmare, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  Waking up.  With a horror story, there is no tunnel.  No light at the end of it.  It's more like a quagmire in which the victim is sinking deeper and deeper.  Past the ankles.  Making walking hard.  The quagmire appears endless.  Totally engulfing.  Hope is in short supply.

I remember a moment in an Olympic games many years ago which has stood out in my memory.  An athlete had sustained an injury but was determined to run again.  He started off with the others.  All eyes on him.  Running.  Would he make it?  Would he complete the race?  At first, it seemed like he would.  Then he fell.  He picked himself up.  Tried again.  Fell again.  Picked himself up.  Could no longer run.  Tried walking.  Determined to cross the finish line.  His face showed both his struggle and his determination.  His father and his coach witnessed this man, picking himself up.  Saw his determination.  First one, then the other, left the sidelines and approached the runner.  The father on one side.  The coach on the other. Their arms around the athlete, the three completed the race and crossed the finish line.  Not the way he wanted to.  Not on a sprint, arms waving in the arm, huge smile on his face to cheers of adulation.  Yet, he attained a greater victory.  By not giving up.  By continuing on in the face of great adversity.

From here my (deranged) mind flits to a more recent memory of a man I've never met nor talked to.  Whose name I don't know.  Yet as he ran past me on a beach a few years ago, he created an indelible imprint in my mind.  A jogger.  There are many of those on the beach.  What caused this one jogger to impact me so much?  The answer.  He was running with a prosthesis.  To me, he has become a visual image for me to keep on.  To face the challenges.  To continue on the race.  It can be done.


This is you and me, my fellow journeyer, on the path of recovery.  We can do this.

Pushing the Envelope

"Pastor" Karl

Recently, in this blog, I've been exploring the reality of the extent of the damage/injury I sustained during the severely stressful situation in 2011.  Of the on-going challenges I cope with on a daily basis.  How there are no instructions to follow to navigate through the physical morass I find myself saddled with.  How I wish there was an emotional GPS to guide me through this.  At the next intersection, turn right.  Etc.  But then would I learn anything?  Or would the GPS to emotional health become a crutch?  An enabler?

And so, this week, I was faced with a challenge.  One I could accept.  Or deny.  The choice was mine.  What decision was I going to make?  Was I up to this challenge?

The challenge?  Driving to Niagara Falls, NY to see a good friend (and encourager during this rough time) whom I hadn't seen in approximately 25 years.  Someone who knows me well.  Someone who's seen me when I was angry, unloveable, and was still willing to come alongside me.

The problem?  Niagara Falls, while a good deal closer than northern California, where Pastor Karl and his wife now live, was still a far drive from the "Golden Triangle" where I live.  About 1 1/2 to 2 hours using expressways.  More using back roads.  Expressways are still beyond me.  

To complicate matters, Pastor Karl was only going to be in the area for three days.  Three weekdays - which meant that Papa Bear could not accompany me - unless he took time off work.

I enquired of several encouragers who have gone the extra mile in the past.  None were able to come with me this time.

Social isolation is part and parcel of the road I travel.  My outside network is limited.  Especially when asking someone to give up an entire day.

In my present state of constantly fluctuating disabilities/altered abilities, I figured that I could probably make it there on my own.  But could I make it back?  What if I started out and then was unable to make it home?  What if I got too tired to drive home?  Too foggy in the mind?  Not alert enough?  What if?  What if?

What should I do.  Should I try?  Or should I stay home in my safe den?  

I had decided no.  I would pass.  Stay in the safety zone.  Not push the envelope.  And then Pastor Karl arrived in Buffalo and called me.  Something in me said "make one more effort to try to find someone."  Just one more effort.  If you don't, you may well be passing up a once in a lifetime chance to see Pastor Karl in the flesh up close and personal.  The opportunity may never happen again.

Who could I ask?  I put my thinking cap on.  (Helps to have a thinking cap!)  Running mentally through my limited inventory of friends and (mostly) family, my sister-in-love's name popped out.  Another encourager at times during this journey.  She wasn't able to come BUT she offered the assistance of her daughter who has her learner's permit.  In Canada we have the graduated licensing system, which means in practical terms for this trip that "A" could not drive on limited access highways.  However, since I'm not up to driving those roads - yet - and would have had to drive the back way anyway,  I jumped at the offer.

During the last hour while working on this blog, I have become very tired.  Too tired to continue writing.  To continue thinking.  Mentally still buoyed up by yesterday's trip.  Physically, needing to crash.  Therefore, I will finish today's blog, not with words, but with pictures.

Thank you for accompanying me on my journey through recovery.

Instructions Not Included

Ever tried to assemble something?  Looking at 52 pages of small print instructions - in the dark of night with only a flashlight for illumination?  A flashlight with weak batteries.  Add a strong wind which blows the sheets of paper about like leaves in the fall.  The letters swim about on the paper changing shape and form.  For all the good, they're doing, they could be written in another script entirely.

A nightmare?  Your worst nightmare?

You ask yourself:  Is this a dream or is it real?  Am I going to wake up from this?

In my experience with trauma, especially the latest trauma in 2011, I learned the difference between a nightmare and a horror story.  A nightmare you wake up from.  Horror you don't.

Most importantly, I learned that recovery from severe stress, etc. does not come with any instructions.  No doctor, no counsellor can give you exact directions to follow to get well.  There are too many variables in the equation.  In fact, in my journey, I've been the one researching, problem-solving, describing symptoms to my health care team.  It's been a trial and error process.

I've been blessed that my counsellor not only is well-versed in trauma but has experienced it in her own life, thus enabling her to walk beside me step by painful step.  It was my counsellor who first described my experience as "horror" and suggested that until I faced the horror, it would not magically go away.  It was my counsellor who told me a piece of her journey through trauma and how she learned that after the acute phase settles, the physical body starts to act up some six to 12 months after the trauma.  It was my counsellor who give me a huge piece of wisdom:  when the victim is experiencing both emotional and physical symptoms, taking care of the physical symptoms comes first.

Even then she couldn't tell me what to do.  She could only support me as I stumbled and bumbled my way through the morass.  She could - and did - provide a safe place for me to tell my story - over and over again from this viewpoint and from that viewpoint - ad nauseum and to work through all the complications of recovery from severe stress and trauma.

My doctor, likewise, has provided a support system through regularly following up with me re: medications, emotions, etc.

Both have provided a lifeline.

Both have allowed me to direct my own journey towards healing.

Both have affirmed me as a human being in this journey.

Both have helped restore my sense of self worth, that there really is some value left in this old bear, by repeatedly affirming the conclusions I am drawing and the way I'm directing my healing journey.

Recovery doesn't come with easy instructions.

But it is possible.

I'll be exploring this issue of recovery minus instructions in later posts.  Until then, keep reading and keep healing.

Life is what happens ...

...when we have others plans.

As I originally thought about the idea for this post, I was thinking of all the times I've been  heading in one direction.  Only to have life intervene in a way where I'm forced into another, totally unexpected direction.  Being asked to resign from a position as a children's home in the 1970s was one such example.  Because of that I ended up finding a really good church in my home community, went to Bible school and, eventually, became a missionary/teacher in Texas.  That eventually led to a path which took me first to language school in south Texas and then to a mission on the Texas/US border where I was a missionary/teacher for two years.  Which led to another incident when life intervened with my plans.  During my second year, a lone Canadian male came down for the winter who said he'd had a dream in which I became his wife.  We were married that summer. Resulting in 2.5 children who might never have been born if I hadn't initially been asked to resign from that job in the children's home.

Life is indeed what happens when you have other plans.

Life has been intervening big time in my story for more than a year now.  It's caused a lot of pain, frustration, yet also growth and learning.

I cope daily with the latent affects of severe stress:  itching which at times is so bad that I can't bear to have anything touch my body.  Sometimes I'm close to screaming with the discomfort.  So uncomfortable that words won't come.  Fatigue.  So bad that I lie in bed unable to move, to read, to do anything other than prayer.  But at least I can pray.  Weakness.  My body feels like rubber.  One weekend last fast when this fast starting taking over my life, the sun was shining outside my window.  A gorgeous fall day.  There wouldn't be many others like it.  I wanted to go outside.  Enjoy the sunshine.  But too weak to sit up, I had to content myself with lying on my bed letting the sun stream in through the window.  Other affects come and go:  balance issues, inertia, inability to enjoy things I used to.  Impaired cognitive skills.  There have been times when the balance has been so off kilter that I've had to grab something, anything, to stay upright.

Life ... intervened when I had other plans.

My plans?  What where they?  To stay at my job another 3 1/2 years until the magic age of 65.  To take a long-delayed vacation with Papa Bear to British Columbia - our original honeymoon destination which never happened because life ....

Life happened in 2011 in the form of a stress breakdown, psychiatric injury.  Already coping and dealing with lifelong complex PTSD, I found myself floundering in a turbulent sea of emotions.  Violent waves crashing in over me again and again.  Unrelenting.  Until finally, emotionally I went under.  Drowning.  Crushed.

Life ...

Yet I still hung on like a drowning person to a log.  Trying to survive.  To keep my head above the water that was engulfing me.

I knew I could not go back into that situation.  It would kill me.  I had Papa Bear and the cubs to live for.

Life ...

What do you do when it intervenes?  Go back into the den, curl up, lie down and hibernate?  If so, for how long?  Just for a season?  Or for longer?

What do you do when the big world outside the den suddenly feels unsafe.  Terrifying.  Other bears are lurking out there somewhere.  Hostile bears.  How will I know if they are friend or foe?  Do I even want to?

Life ...  is not only what happens when you have other plans, but how you handle the interruption.

More in another post.