To the brave souls walking among us

The dictionary defines brave as ready to face and endure danger or pain; showing courage.

More often than not it is the ‘visible’ bravery that ignites our admiration when we can see someone physically being courageous when they for instance go to war. But what about bravery the eye cannot see?

This year’s supplement is an ode to those voices who are raised to say ‘I am brave, even if you don’t see my daily struggle’.

The mother raising two children with a potentially deadly chronic disease who spent many a school holiday with her children in a hospital ward because they need intensive care.

The writer and journalist who puts his own inner darkness and demons aside to give a voice to the broken and downtrodden.

The student who excels in her studies but wears the hidden scars of a rape when she was a teenager and by someone she knew.

The woman, mother and wife who celebrates and embraces the ‘otherness’ of autism even though the world wants her to be just like everybody else.

The young man in the prime of his life who uses the gym to show the world and himself that multiple sclerosis will not make him weak.

The man who lives with albinism, who went back to the community who branded him as bad luck to share his success story, and that he has the same dreams and aspirations as everybody else.

It was the writer Elizabeth Gilbert who said “without bravery, you will never know the world as richly as it longs to be known. Without bravery, your life will remain small – far smaller than you probably wanted your life to be.”

I salute you.