Suleika Jaouad

And so I decided to go on a real journey, not the bullshit cancer one or the mythical hero's journey that everyone thought I should be on, but a real pack-your-bags kind of journey.

I put everything I owned into storage, rented out my apartment, borrowed a car and talked a very dear but somewhat smelly friend into joining me.

Together, my dog Oscar and I embarked on a 15,000-mile road trip around the United States.

Along the way, we visited some of those strangers who'd written to me.

I needed their advice also to say to them, thank you.

I went to Ohio and stayed with Howard, the retired professor.

When you've suffered a loss or a trauma, the impulse can be to guard your heart.

But Howard urged me to open myself up to uncertainty, to the possibilities of new love, new loss.

Howard will never be cured of illness, and as a young man, he had no way of predicting how long he'd live, but that didn't stop him from getting married.

Howard has grandkids now and takes weekly ballroom dancing lessons with his wife.

When I visited them, they'd recently celebrated their 50th anniversary.

In his letter to me, he'd written, meaning is not found in the material realm.

It's not in dinner, jazz, cocktails or conversation.

Meaning is what's left when everything else is stripped away.

I went to Texas and I visited little GQ on death row.

He asked me what I did to pass all that time I'd spent in a hospital room.

When I told him I got really, really good at Scrabble, he said, me too, and explained how even though he spends most of his days in solitary confinement, he and his neighboring prisoners make board games out of paper and call out their plays through their meal slots.

a testament to the incredible tenacity of the human spirit and our ability to adapt with creativity.

And my last stop was in Florida to see that teenage girl who'd sent me all those emojis.

Her name is unique, which is perfect, because she's the most luminous, curious person I've ever met.