Those eight words, scribbled in anger on a piece of paper, were the last words my mother said to me. How do you answer a question like that when I had come there to watch her die? It was one month past my twenty-sixth birthday. I was living in San Diego and enjoying a fairly comfortable life.

That changed within the course of only two weeks. At twenty-six, I knew so little about surviving train wrecks. What I’ve learned since then is that everyone faces difficulties. Some people will bounce back from the worst of defeats while others face lesser challenges and quit. What I’m interested in is why.