“It’s hard to watch the decline and sometimes hard to visit but it weighs on me not to,” she said. Her father had always been an elaborate storyteller and an alive, vibrant man with a big voice.

“I wonder if these medical professionals, in caring for people who face such insurmountable odds, walk around all the time carrying this weight I’m hauling now.”

His empathy only reminded him that he could not help those in pain.

He had been trying to cope with the grief ever since and was on a quest for soul-searching and meaning-making.

She spoke about the ways this traumatic event shaped who she is today: a person with an “unshakeable peace” born of deep faith,

"I don’t know what I’m doing,” but this time, she admonished the negative self-talk.

She reflected on how her resilience was born from moments of shared mirth amid life's trying chapters.

This past year, he was a right defensive tackle on his school football team, but for the past two and a half years, he’d been caring for his dad, who had cancer.

He asked for a poem for his dad — “something beautiful and transitory like blossoms or snowflakes,” he said. He talked about what it’s like to see people change over time, through the seasons.

Being a poet himself, he was eager to share his word and recite some of his favorite pieces of poetry. He had so much to share, but honed in, requesting a poem about his wife.