How to Face Adversity without Losing Hope: Part 4

Rebuilding Hope While Still Honoring Heartbreak

Hope doesn’t erase heartbreak. And heartbreak doesn’t disqualify hope. Most of us learn—often unwillingly—that the two learn to live beside each other.

A powerful example of this is the life of Otto Frank, the father of Anne Frank and the sole surviving member of his immediate family after the Holocaust. He lost everything—his wife, his daughters, his home, the world he knew. And yet, he chose to honor his daughter Anne’s life by publishing her diary. Her words, preserved because he believed the world needed them, became a global voice for courage, innocence, honesty, and the stubborn persistence of hope.

The series “A Small Light” (National Geographic, streaming on Hulu and Disney+) beautifully depicts the bravery, heartbreak, and quiet everyday choices behind the Frank family’s story—showing that rebuilding doesn’t always look like triumph. Sometimes it looks like simply continuing. Putting one foot on the floor. Choosing to tell the truth. Choosing to live.

We would never compare our stories to the enormity of that history. But we can learn from the shape of Otto Frank’s resilience.

Because in the disability community, we know loss too.
Loss of life.
Loss of safety.
Loss of the future we imagined.
Loss of the version of motherhood or childhood we thought we were promised.

Sometimes the dreams we held get rerouted, rewritten, or shattered. Sometimes the grief is quiet and chronic. Sometimes it is loud and devastating.

And yet—so many of you are still here. Still advocating. Still loving fiercely. Still finding slivers of joy in places grief never expected. As Eleanor Roosevelt said:

“It is not fair to ask of others what you are unwilling to do yourself, but it is the hard that makes it great.”

Hardship doesn’t make you inadequate. It makes you forged.

Rebuilding hope doesn’t require pretending the heartbreak is gone.
It simply requires refusing to let the heartbreak be the end of the story.

And that is what Lemon Cake is all about: honoring the truth of what hurts while choosing every day to believe there is still something worth living, building, and holding onto.

If you’ve made it through this four-part series, you are already practicing resilience in real time. And we’re honored to walk beside you.