Be proud of your pain, for you are stronger than those with none. – Lois Lowry

It’s a rare occasion for me to have actually met the author of a published quote. In this case, I have. Lois Lowry came as a guest speaker to Frankfurt International School (FIS) many years ago. At that time, we had a chance to talk – about both of our years spent in Japan (hers as a military child and mine much later as a young wife), and how she lost a son on military duty in Germany. Her son, a USAF major, was killed in the crash of his fighter plane in 1995.

This quote immediately brought her loss to mind.

More on that fateful day, 30 May, 1995, in the article Placing Blame at any Cost by Mark Thompson: http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,135113,00.html

Her book, The Giver, for which she received the Newbery Medal, can be found here (for learners of English at B1 language proficiency level):