The Strawberry.

A man. An IV drip.
A diving helmet sealed over his face, because that is what the worst days do.
They tell you that you are drowning, and the surface is gone.

This was one of the worst days of my life. And one of the worst of Tom's.

Tom is a man of mountains and wind,
of the raw untamed living most people only dream of.

Yet on this day his tendons had been cut, sewn back together like torn fabric.
He sat on the cold floor,
not knowing if the legs that once carried him up mountains ever would again.

Everything had fallen apart. Yet look at what he holds.

A strawberry.

Cradled in both hands as if it were the most sacred thing left on earth.

Because it was.

I know there is something bad you are going through.
And I know what it tells you.
That life begins later, that peace lives past this storm.

But Tom did not find the strawberry because his pain had ended.
He found it because he refused to let pain be the only thing that existed.
He reached for the sweetness.

That is the deepest bravery a human is capable of.
To be on the floor, and still ask:

Where is the strawberry right now?

It is in the breath you just took. In the fact that your heart still beats.
In the person beside you whose warmth you stopped feeling
because the pain was too loud.

The strawberry has always been here. It does not wait for your suffering to end.
It grows in the middle of it. In the trembling hands of someone who chose to say:
Not today. Today I will not let the darkness have all of me.

This Mirror is called "The Strawberry."

It is not here to decorate your wall.
It is here to find you on the worst day of your life and remind you:
the worst can happen. And still. Still there is a strawberry.

Find it. Hold it. Taste it.
And let it save your life.