In the balance
On Coping #148
When I started writing On Coping, I described story as a survival tool.
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I was taken with the quote from Morgan Harper Nichols:
“Tell the story of the mountain you climbed. Your words could become a page in someone else’s survival guide.”
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It propelled me to share our story, fuelled by a chance that its telling may offer solace or instruction or warning or - dare I say it - inspiration, to another human being.
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That telling our story may help someone else survive.
Survive the unsurvivable.
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A grand idea for sure.
But one worth believing in.
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Then a few weeks ago, my friend wrote to me.
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She told me a story of her own.
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And far from feeling like the narrative of a mountain climbed, it read like the tale of a treasure discovered.
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It was a story that offered a different kind of survival tool.
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Not one of warning.
But of hope.
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And I have clung to it ever since.
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And with her blessing, I have chosen to share it with you.
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This is what she wrote:
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. . .
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My dear George,
