Celebrating the Survivors

This month, I am celebrating August 16 as Survivor’s Day. It is the one-year anniversary of my brother’s survival of a massive hemorrhagic stroke. It is a day that I will never forget, as he was whisked off in a helicopter from his little rural town to a stroke center in Tulsa. As the rotors beat their tempo into the dark night sky, lifting my little brother into the air, I wondered if I would ever see him again.

And yet, he survived. So many don’t. Strokes, heart attacks, cancer and traumas of all sorts take our loved ones from us. This is why we focus on health and wellness in this magazine—so that every reader has a better chance to live another day. Because every day, bodies are beset with maladies for which there is no cure. No spoiler alert here—we all suffer trauma. It is part of the human experience, the human condition. You would think that every person walking the Earth would be filled with fear and anxiety. And yet…

There is joy. There is happiness. There are even blissful connections with the Divine. Something truly beautiful can happen when you suffer through or survive trauma of any sort, or when you recover from the loss of a loved one. It can help you turn inside, away from the distractions of modern life, and back into a recognition of what truly matters.

And what is that? What truly matters? I know this truth now—only love remains. We are here to love each other. It is the only thing that matters. When trauma takes a human body, it does not destroy love. My love for my brother will not end when his body dies or when mine does. My love for my hubby and son, my sisters and extended family will not ever die. Life, with its ups and downs, with the frailties and foibles of the human body, cannot destroy the intangible, the “true” nature of each of us.

I am a survivor.
My brother is a survivor.
You, my friend, are a survivor.

On the 16th, I will be celebrating survivors like me, like him, like us. I celebrate the unending, unquenchable, indomitable spirit of man expressed through the simple reality of love. And that is truly all that matters.

With love,
Shanna

P.S. The Beatles were right, you know; all you really need is love!