There is a liquid in my refrigerator that expired five years ago, meant to keep a man alive who has been gone just as long. My father’s insulin still sits in that corner, a quiet anchor. I still look back and wonder if it felt like a quiet violence to his spirit—to go from a life lived marvelously, on his own grand terms, to a state of absolute dependence in those final days. Did it make him sick to the core?
When he died five years ago, my phone buzzed endlessly with texts and condolences. But the only call that made me smile came from my friend, M.
She didn’t offer me the standard, empty platitudes. She didn’t tell me how sorry she was, or how unfair my life was about to become. Instead, she made me sit down right there on the floor. And one by one, she began to unwrap the most beautiful memories we shared with Papa. She reminded me of his effortless sarcasm, his habit of having empty pockets but an always-ready-to-give attitude, and his rare ability to laugh at himself and at life. Suddenly, the suffocating weight lifted. I could breathe again. I could finally let the reality sink in.
M has always been an outlier—a rare specimen where brilliance meets profound humility. But being an outlier means her own life is extraordinarily challenging, even if she makes the weight look effortless. The other day, I called her, venting my frustrations. In the middle of her own chaos, while driving, she offered me a lifeline in just a few lines:
“People do what they know best. You do what you know best. And what you know best is being self reliant and finding hope in the darkest corners.”
There was nothing left for me to say. She had gently awakened a part of my soul that I had carefully, deliberately silenced over the past year: the quiet, stubborn voice that always insisted there was nothing beyond my reach.
Then there is our third friend, a literal live wire. She lost her husband to COVID-19 while pregnant with their second child. I don’t think she ever stopped to complain. She simply kept moving forward, carrying life on her shoulders as though the ground hadn’t just shattered beneath her.
What was the glue that brought the three of us together? It was an enduring defiance against limitation. We barely needed anyone. Today, life has scattered us across different corners of the world—but that unbroken thread remains.
My illness confined me to a corner where independence felt like a luxury I could no longer afford. I read the books. I learned to slow down. I practiced the vulnerability of asking for help, and help often came. But no one tells you about the quiet erosion that happens to your spirit when you must constantly ask to be sustained.
Two nights back, I awoke with a shudder at 3:35 AM. In the quiet of the night, I turned to prayer. Stretching my arms open, I confessed:
“My Dear God, I am grateful for every blessing, but MY SOUL IS WEARY OF ASKING FOR HELP. If You are here in this room, hear my vow: these hands will never be outstretched in front of the mortals again. Only to You. Give me the relentless strength to stand on my own, not partially , but fully and completely . Give me the power to create a beautiful, meaningful life out of what is left of mine.”
I sometimes find myself drowning in an invisible exhaustion—a vulnerability fatigue that comes from constantly having to lower my guard just to get through the day.
As entrepreneur and author Jamie Kern Lima beautifully put it, “Fear and faith both demand that you believe in a future that hasn’t happened yet.” For a long time, backed into a corner by illness, fear was the easier choice—it was the logical response to a body that felt unpredictable and a life that felt suddenly dependent on the hands of others.
Fear drew a map of a diminished future and asked me to believe in it.Today , I choose to look at the exact same unseen future through the lens of faith. Not a passive faith that waits for rescue, but an unyielding faith that refuses to hollow out my dignity before the world any longer. Both paths require me to believe in what I cannot see. I choose to believe that these hands, stretched out only to the Almighty, still possess the power to build something breathtakingly beautiful .
If I have to choose between being raised by a village or raising myself all over again, I would choose the solitude of my own making. Not everyone is wired the same, and one path isn’t inherently better than the other. But for me, having to ask nothing of anyone—save for the Almighty—is my greatest flex and the wind beneath my wings.
This is my quiet resolve. If I possess any singular certainty, it is my own resilience—the quiet, stubborn ability to hit the ground a million times and still find the strength to stand.
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