Editing 'Terminally Optimistic'
It wasn’t a big thing. Many people may not have even noticed it. They might have just turned their heads, stared through the dusty, bus windows and gotten lost in the Peruvian mountainside and the music playing in the one earbud.
To Andrés, though, it was a lasting, meaningful impression that would stay with him throughout his life. And Eva had just made it.
The Meysembourgs came into 2018 on a high note.
Their daughter, Mila, was born 3 months earlier, in October, and Nick just became partner in a sales company he’d worked at for over 11 years. They were on a roll. 
Nick, Mila, and Natalie on October 15, 2017, just after Mila was born.
Sarah DeBord
Sarah DeBord lived with stage IV colon cancer since November of 2011, when she was diagnosed at the age of 34. She knew early on that there was no way out of this disease and that it would probably take her life.
Tom Scott: Giving all he had and finding all that matters most.
Dani, Tom, Emmett, and Mia
A lot has changed for Tom in the past 3 years.
Three years ago, his wife, Dani, was diagnosed with breast cancer and given 3 years to put her ‘affairs in order.' Early in the spring of this year, two and a half years after her diagnosis, Dani passed away.
Logan Greene: Talking a lot and saying more.
In a year of monumental, global upheaval, where COVID-19 grips the world, and calls for social justice tear at the fabric of our society, people want to get out, but they’re told to stay in. They want to speak, but they’re told to cover their mouths. The world of certainty is no more, and nobody can tell you for certain when it will be back.
Amid this chaos, the Greene's world was flipped upside down too.
Logan, Mila, Charlotte and Cheryl Green. 4th of July 2020
Allison Breininger: beyond the pain, the fear, the unknown, finding the grace to accept her role and recognize her own limitations as a caregiver, and sharing those truths with other caregivers.
When she was younger, Allison marveled at the exciting and interesting lives others had.
She’d grown up a pastor’s child in a town in Indiana, in a stable family, where ‘nothing’ interesting ever happened to her, and she expected the rest of her life would progress as it always had. 
Erik Therwanger: caregiving, one goal at a time. Building on the momentum of hope.
Erik Therwanger is all about setting goals and meeting them, then building on that momentum to do even greater things.
He’s all about giving back, serving others, and looking forward, with hope, toward the future.
Brian Zahn: From real love to real loss, to learning to live again - for their son and because that’s what she would want!
Brian, Henry, and Melissa Zahn
Somewhere between classes, tests, parties, and everything else that goes on when young people go off to college, Brian and Melissa met.
It was 2005 on the campus of the University of Minnesota, Duluth. They had their whole lives ahead of them.
Mark Mattson: Looking back with fondness and love. Looking forward with courage and resolution, knowing that she will always be with them!
Mark & Teri - August 2019
High school sweethearts They met in high school through mutual friends. Soon after, they started dating and continued dating through college. “We just hit it off and dated through high school, without all the drama of breakups and getting back together. We just got along well and were a great fit together.”
Ishmael Israel: Dreams interrupted by parent’s worst nightmare. Waking up every day now, thinking: ‘it’s the first day of the rest of my life.'
Ishmael Israel has spent much of his life helping others.
Over the past 2 decades, he has advocated for people in his community and around the country through his work with the Northside Residents Redevelopment Council (NRRC) and the Umoja Community Development Corporation (UCDC). At NRRC, he first volunteered for years and later answered the call to serve as Interim Executive Director. It was in this role that he met his wife, Julia. NRRC is a nonprofit organization that serves Near North and Willard-Hay neighborhoods in Minneapolis, encouraging economic development projects for residents in those neighborhoods. “NRRC allowed us to represent our community when dealing with the city of Minneapolis, but we founded another nonprofit called Umoja Community Development Corporation that was not bound to a certain geographic area so it allowed me to advocate for policy change nationwide.” |
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