I will remember this evening as one of the most privileged moments spent at the business school. This little woman, our colleague, whose tribulations none of us has ever suspected, shared with us the painful details of the tragedy that torn apart her life, her family, her faith. Her voice trembling at times, her watery eyes questioning an ever silent God, she went bravely through her self-imposed ordeal and gave us the full account of her emotional agony.

“I have been in caregiver mode most of my life”, she replied when asked if she has time to care a little for herself these days, “so I guess I need to take a course in caring for myself to learn how to do that”. Indeed, even as she was telling her story, it felt as if she was the one taking care of us, uplifting us as we were walking with her through the dark.

Her past year was a modern Book of Job. And although many of us were probably faced with emotional hardships in our lives, my heart faltered at the thought of ever having to face what she has been and is still going through.

But above all I was moved by her courage not only in dealing with her burden, but in opening up to us, with all hear fears, her anger and her suffering. At times I felt uneasy, as if I had inadvertently intruded on someone’s confession, but her bravery kept me there. I was staring at her, wondering where does all her power come from. I do not know the answer. All I know is that there is no true courage in the absence of fear.

She reminded me of another brave woman, Joan of Arc, and of Leonard Cohen’s verses:

“I saw her wince, I saw her cry,
I saw the glory in her eye.
Myself I long for love and light,
but must it come so cruel, and oh so bright?”

“What can we do?”, another colleague asked. “Not much, really, she said, I just wanted you to know and to understand if sometimes I have to suddenly leave class to take a phone call or if I arrive late at a meeting. And I certainly don’t expect you to ask all the time how’s things, but it helps if you do ask from time to time. It helps to know someone cares.”

We all walk wounded, but tonight I left feeling a little less scared of my own wounds and of other people’s scars. “From the depths of her pain”, Pablo Neruda once wrote, “she gave us her hand; she gave us silence, water and hope; we all spoke through her words and through her blood”.