Returning early after three months, the millionaire choked back tears, expecting his daughter to run into his arms. Instead, she whispered, “Daddy, you’re back early.” Stepping inside, he saw her shivering in rags, while his wife lived in luxury. He froze, knelt down, and asked softly, “Who did this to you?”

of her mouth. A ghost of a smile.

That microscopic shift in her facial muscles devastated me more profoundly than any of her tears ever had.

Healing, I rapidly discovered, was not a cinematic montage of sweeping emotional breakthroughs. It was brutally repetitive. It was an agonizing cycle of two steps forward, one step back.

It was sitting with her during continue reading …