“There was no foreseeing the future when my sister Anne’s daughter, 22-year-old Suleika Jaouad, left her parents at the airport on the way to her first job in Paris. She had just graduated from Princeton University. She later wrote:
“I was so excited for what lay ahead, I nearly forgot to wave goodbye to my parents. Armed with a college diploma, my first job offer, a one-way ticket to Paris, and a new pair of heels, I was ready to take on anything.”
A month later, on our way to Portugal, my husband Moe and I stopped in the French capital and shared a meal with a cheerful young Suleika, whose social agenda was as busy as her position as paralegal at an international mediation law firm. She seemed ready to conquer whatever challenge life placed in front of her. She was eying a position for the Herald Tribune to report on the Arab Spring in North Africa, and she had met a handsome young Harvard graduate, who was on his way to join her in Paris.”
Excerpt From: Nicolette F. Asselin, M.D, Anne Francey & Suleika Jaouad. “Creative Resilience.” GetWell Education, 2015. iBooks.
In an age in which terrorism, natural disasters, illnesses, shootings, and wide-scale industrial errors and accidents are occurring with increasing frequency, there is a tremendous need to develop ways to cope with the aftershocks.
“Post-traumatic illnesses are on the rise, and we need to find new ways to curtail and prevent their rise. Building resilience has become an important topic. In this story, I tried to illustrate the ways our family dealt with a personal tragedy. ”
Nicolette F. Asselin, M.D. 