One Tough Broad

After I posted a comment on Facebook about my experience at the Baltimore Marathon, one of my friends ( a real friend, not just a Facebook one), commented that I was one tough broad.  It made me laugh, because this friend buried her husband less than six months ago and has two children under the age of 7 while managing an active and successful litigation practice (she is not a collaborative practitioner), and she said I was one tough broad.   Really?  True, I ran over 2 miles in a lot of physical pain, but every day this friend gets up, parents her children and takes care of her clients, all while suffering an unthinkable and unimaginably painful loss.  She is amazing.  Do most of her clients know about her loss?  Maybe, but not because she shows them any less sympathy, or cares for them and their cases any less. 
I think there would be a huge temptation for my friend to tell her clients to just get over it, that their problems and complaints can't compare to what she's going through.  She doesn't do that, however.  She treats them all the same as she always did.  She soldiers through every day despite her grief.  She's my hero.
Truth be told, most of us who work in the Trenches have suffered.  We're just like everyone else, with the same problems and tragedies as many of our clients.  Some of our problems pale in comparison to what our clients have gone through, and sometimes, our client's difficulties are trivial to what we have experienced in our own lives.  The best of us, however, never feel our clients' problems are trivial, let alone tell them that.  We all realize that every person's pain is just as awful to them as ours is to us, even though it may not be the same kind of pain.  It's like comparing my knee to my friend's loss.  What she and I both know is that we need to recognize each other's pain and celebrate the triumphs over it, because it is vital that the victories and not the defeats define us and give us the hope and strength to get up each day and live our lives to their fullest.  It is our job here in the Trenches to impart that philosophy to our clients by the way we live our lives and help them live theirs.