Resilience is not the absence of struggle, but the understanding that struggle and goodness are not mutually exclusive. A moment can hold grief without being emptied of joy; something can be hard without being wholly bad. It is learning to sit with what is real, even when it is uncomfortable, and to return, again and again, to what is still within reach.

Some days, joy does not arrive in sweeping gestures or perfectly framed photographs—it slips quietly into the edges of our lives. It comes in the squeal of laughter when Bean demands another round of “spins,” her curls flying as she twirls around the kitchen in my arms or Beloved’s. It lingers in the weight of Bun pressed against me as his voice insists, "just one more chapter before bed," and I relent because I know he won’t be little forever and all too soon he will stop asking me to read to him all together.