On being resilient

Sunflowers: the scrappiest of flowers

For as long as I can remember, sunflowers have been my favorite flower. With their thick, sinewy stems, sunflowers are the scrappiest of flowers. Known to thrive in rough soil, they are strong, resilient, and unapologetically bold-faced.

Resilience is a theme that’s been popping up for me lately. Today, I’m thinking about the setbacks I’m experiencing, both big and small. I learned of the passing of a friend with whom I’ve had a complicated and sometimes challenging relationship. I got another “I love your novel, but it’s not quite right for me” response from an agent. My candidate lost — and that feels like a tremendous defeat. And we have a super annoying dishwasher that won’t drain the water. It all feels a little overwhelming.

Resiliency and mental health

I bet that you can relate. Though our challenges and setbacks are uniquely ours, I’m sure you also feel the universal daily struggles we each face as a consequence of being human. Psychologists tell us that how we respond to these challenges – our resilience factor – is vital to our mental health. Resilience allows us to adapt to adversity, maintain a positive outlook, and manage stress. A resilient person ultimately emerges stronger and more capable of facing future challenges.

As for me and being resilient, I know I can deal with my challenges and disappointments, even if it takes a little while. I appreciate that I come from a lineage of prairie women who were both kind and tough, gentle and tenacious.

Prairie strong

My great-grandmother Martha lost her husband at age fifty-eight. On a cold day in January 1947, they were visiting friends for Sunday dinner when Nils had a sudden and fatal heart attack. On her calendar on that day, she simply wrote: “Papa died today”. Going forward, the calendar continued to list the ordinary appointments of her daily life. Married just twenty-two years, Martha lived another thirty-six years on her own. She kept going in the way that so many widows have kept going.

My mother has lost both parents, two husbands, a brother, and a son. She’s had both knees and a hip replaced and a few other health challenges that might tempt the rest of us to be perpetual complainers. Yet, she gets up every day with an open heart and an immense capacity to love. When I asked her to reflect on all that’s happened to her in the last forty years, she said: “Good thing we can’t see into the future. Luckily, life only comes one day at a time!”

“The Prairie is My Garden” Harvey Dunn, 1950

Of course, it’s not just farm women who have these irrepressible characteristics, but I like to think that prairie women are especially adept at overcoming obstacles with unwavering strength. There’s a painting by native South Dakota artist Harvey Dunn that hung in my living room for many years called “The Prairie is My Garden.” The mother of two appears in front of a small farmstead with scissors in her hand, gathering wildflowers. To me, she exemplifies determination and a desire to find beauty on the untamed Great Plains, and her face seems to balance love and fierceness at once. I recognize that face in so many women I know from South Dakota.

A hundred years

There’s a saying that the women in my family were fond of repeating whenever we faced a disappointment or a bout of bad luck: “You’ll never remember it in a hundred years.” When I was younger, I thought this was just a silly throwaway adage. But now I understand its wisdom. Over time, the things that seem so earth-shattering are often just another annoying roadblock — a part of being human. We end up surviving that which seems so devastating at the time.

I’m grateful to have been raised by strong, resilient women who were supported by other resilient women who recognized that by living in community with other women, they could survive and thrive. It’s in my genes and in my prairie roots. And it’s one of the themes in my novel WEDNESDAY CLUB.

As you face the inevitable challenges ahead, I hope all of you have courageous women in your lives who will teach you how to heal yourself, pick yourself up again, and move forward despite the odds. Resilience won’t make your problems disappear, but it can help you see past them, find ways to enjoy life, and better handle stressful events.

And so, it is with resilience in my heart that I’ll face the challenges I’m experiencing. I will remember the heartfelt conversation I had with my challenging friend where I openly shared my feelings and she listened, really listened, to me. And even though my candidate lost, I will continue to speak out about the injustices I see as we work toward a better, more equitable, more sustainable life for all. I’ll push forward with my agent queries until I decide I won’t anymore, however long that takes. As for the dishwasher, I suppose a repairperson can fix it, or we’ll need to get a new one. It’s that simple. And for all of the above, I’m sure I’ll never remember them in a hundred years.

In the meantime, I’ve bought a bunch of sunflowers and put them in my favorite vase on our dining room table. They make me happy and remind me that “this too shall pass.”

Please share your stories of resilience and hope in the comments below. What gets you through challenging times?