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The painful odysseys we embark on after tragedy – in search of meaning, answers, or some form of recompense—do not usually yield precisely what we seek. They do, however, still offer something of value: a more nuanced, sophisticated understanding what befell us. At the outset of afterlives, many grasp their catastrophes through the lenses of diminishment and bereavement. We question why it was our lives that needed to be ravaged, staggering through self-pity and refuting the permanence of our displaced fates. But through the slow, often unconscious process of adaptation, in which we strengthen parts of our character and refine certain aspects of our lifestyle, we grow more thoughtful and discerning. We may eventually arrive at a humble but dignified truth: For all the pain and desolation our catastrophe has caused us, there is some measure of good that has come from it, too. For many people, that good – the radiant thread of redemption stitched into a darker, more saturnine tapestry—is in the cause, craft, or discipline they’ve discovered and become devoted to.

Reaching a state of devotion often requires individuals to pass through the periods of seeking, refinement, and even vulnerability discussed in the preceding chapters. A simplified, refined existence—shorn of excess and distraction, consolidated through its unflinching focus – provides the ideal environment for dedication to take deep, imperishable root. And vulnerability can push us to seek out a cause or pursuit that functions like a circle of protection. When we pour ourselves into our passions, we are less susceptible to the vagaries of our illnesses, disabilities, and traumas. Those who are consumed by something are also fortified within it. Many of us scour for some nugget of meaning or cryptic purpose behind our traumas, as though groping around for a secret note hidden in the back of a picture frame. Amid our ceaseless searching, we eventually find ourselves immersed in something that honors our journeys without necessarily vanishing the pain that prompted them—be it a fight over gun control, a crusade to counter addiction, or a newfound love for painting. These pursuits may be consolation prizes in the place of desperate prayers to reverse the past, but our devotion to them can become a worthy substitute for the answer we’ve been seeking.  

In many afterlives, devotion becomes the engine, the apparatus from which we create meaning from our before-and-after experiences. Nowhere is this on more stirring display than among parents who’ve lost children. In the aftermath of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, in which his seven-year-old son was murdered, Mark Barden cofounded Sandy Hook Promise, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing future gun violence inside schools. “For me it’s not like a car accident that I went through and how horrible that was,” he said. “This was a redefining experience that has completely changed me, rewired me as a person, and it was a catalyst moment for everything being different afterward. It started a process in motion and it’s never going to let up.” For Barden, the catastrophe on December 14, 2012, was the “big bang” that birthed a new universe, one where he’s dedicated his life to ending gun violence in school.

Diannee Carden’s son, Michael, has been a leading voice in the harm reduction movement for intravenous drug users before he died of a heroin overdose in 2012. Following his death, Diannee plunged into the world of harm reduction, syringe exchanges, and public health—her son’s world. “I’ve probably become consumed with wanting to help people who use drugs continue to stay alive until they do something else—at the expense of my family and my bank account, “ she said. “I’m not who I used to be. I won’t ever be that person again.”

For parents like these, devotion is tantamount to salvation. It has helped them scrabble a sense of purpose from unfathomable pain, has given them a way not only to conceive of a novel narrative identity for themselves but also to live out that identity every day by acting in a way that reflects and memorializes the person they lost. Devotion following catastrophe is a source of protection, resilience, even regeneration, a clandestine promise, doubtful but rousing, that the object of our prodigious investments will reciprocate our efforts by making us whole.