By Jeff Watson Earlier this year, Dana Reeves slipped beyond our touch. With barely a wave, the 44-year old singer was gone. As the nation paused to admire Dana for her loyalty to her husband Christopher, she spoke to us again with resolute wisdom: "It is more important to know what kind of patient has the disease than to know what kind of disease has the patient!" Dana, of course, was drawing upon the wisdom of the 19th-century physician, Sir William Osler, in her oft-quoted line; yet she was cheerleading for her Superman™ husband who had been paralyzed in a riding mishap. Have you ever met someone or read someone, perhaps like Dana, whose life has deeply touched you—even over the miles? Has someone’s voice taught you—even beyond their lifetime? Have you ever seen a sufferer find the silver lining—despite a terrible storm? I can still hear the voice of Viktor Frankl who survived the camps. Nudging us toward maturity, this Austrian psychiatrist offers guidance: "Suffering, by itself, may not destroy you, but suffering, without meaning, might." During his darkest years, this healer fed his soul by looking for the rainbow beyond the wall and by meditating on the kindness of prisoners sharing bread within. What are your stories? Who are your mentors? How do you pack a mouthful of wisdom into a single line? My story begins in 1896 with the birth of a beautiful baby girl, Vivian Rose Lyon, my grandmother. Vivian’s dad had survived the brutal Civil War, distinguishing himself as a Quartermaster for the 103rd Ohio Infantry of Volunteers; after his dark years, Mort Lyon teamed up with a vibrant wife, with Mort running the General Store downstairs, while Rose managed the boardinghouse upstairs. Blessed with a son and a daughter, the Lyon family brought a measure of hospitality and hope to North English, Iowa.