"I learned a long time ago life isn't fair...you just forge ahead."
~Dana Reeve

I came across this startlingly relevant quote this morning, as I was thumbing through the latest issue of People. I was reading and walking as I usually do on my way into work when I opened the page and saw these words. My feet ceased to move. There I was, stalled on a crosswalk at 88th and Madison, with the haunting words of Superman's wife ringing in my ears.

Maybe what Dana Reeve learned a long time ago, I'm just beginning to realize. Life isn't fair. We may cling desperately to this delicate bundle of hopes and dreams and plans for ourselves, but yet our grip still slips. The bundle crashes to the ground, shattering and splintering into shards of broken glass at our feet. If we stop to pick up the shards, they'll pierce our skin, they'll cut us so deep that we'll writhe in pain and cry out for help. But how can we leave the pieces behind? What will we cling to if not that delicate bundle of hopes and dreams? So we stop and gather the shards of glass. Slowly, we piece them back together. Our skin is pierced. We writhe in pain and cry for help, but we continue to gather up that fractured bundle until it's whole again.

We forge ahead. We must.