How to Fall Forward Like My Friend Victoria

     My friend Victoria showed me that when we fall, whether from our failures or things others inflict upon us, we don’t have to fall back. We can fall forward.     
     Even through tough times, Victoria’s stock response was “it could be worse.” And she endured tough times: hiding under the kitchen table when Nazi bombs rained upon England during World War II, a hardscrabble upbringing in Liverpool, the death of a husband, raising kids on her own, a foreclosure, and a brain injury when a truck hit her.     
​     Her attitude that life is an adventure kept her moving forward as she threw herself into various careers. Some brought in bread, some busted. At one point, Victoria was so broke she lived off of canned tuna and “gutter apples” she scrounged. But she heeded the words of her hero Winston Churchill to “never give up.”     
     When her hip went bad, she moved in with us, crawling up the stairs until she regained her health. Yet when I was down about something, she’d brew a cup of proper tea, remind me “you gotta laugh,” and regale me with stories.     
     In recent years she’d gone from surviving to thriving through her blog, Honey for Your Soul. Hundreds responded to her life-giving encouragement. Her final tweet: “Never quit! Keep asking, seeking, knocking!”      
     Then a heart attack. The finish line. And this time when she fell, she landed in the arms of Jesus.     
     The best fall forward. Ever.

Painting by Kerolos Safwat