People Who Keep the Lamps Lit by Jen Shoop

There are people who draw light to themselves, and almost can't help it. They pull out a chair for you when you approach the table: "please," they say, gesturing you into it, earnest and unaware of their outsized generosity. They say "atta girl" to strangers who have just ridden a big wave or run the bases. They fill the hungry heart with pride and do it with such ease, having learned some time ago that there is no economy of compliments. What made them this way? Not the absence of pain, no. More often than not, heartbreak is the holy ground that anoints them. The more of these light-gatherers I meet, the more I believe it's will, and will forged anew each day. They wake up and they call forth an adamantine determination to resist the ease of despair, and to believe that reality is mainly possibility, even when the wicked comes knocking.