Kelly Corrigan

People take it.

The brave hang around.

They are available and ready to bear witness.

The final act of bravery was made clear for me during a conversation with my friend Liz while she was dying at 46.

She said she had this weird, long, totally convincing dream where all the parents who, as she put it, had to leave early

were gathered, and there she was, one of thousands of moms and dads, and they were on folding chairs, looking down at the world below through a thick glass floor.

And in this imaginary space her subconscious created, there was one rule.

You could watch your child's life unfold, but you could only intervene once.

In Liz's dream, a perfect dream, she never had to intervene.

She had given them enough while she was here.

The final act, then, of the truly brave is leaning back and letting them go.

The reward for all this bravery?

Not gold medals, not hero shots for Strava, not ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange or owning the dinner party with Burning Man stories.

I think you know who you are.

Maybe not even thanks.

The reward is a full human experience, complete with all the emotions at maximum dosage, where we have been put to great use and found an other-centric love that is complete in its expression and its transmission.

The reward is to end up soft and humble, empty and in awe, knowing that of all the magnificence we have beheld, from cradle to grave, the most eye-popping was interpersonal.

So here's to anyone who notices and reads between the lines, who asks the right questions but not too many, who takes notes at the doctor's office and wipes butts young and old, who listens, holds and stays.

We who

untrained and always a little off guard, still dare to do love, to be love.