Fierce Hope

By Maria Shriver
April 25, 2026

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Forty years ago today, I got married in a white New England church on a small street in Hyannis, Massachusetts. I can still see the early morning rain. My parents beaming. My bridesmaids lined up in the colors of the rainbow, laughing and squealing the way only girls can. My youngest brother sobbing through the entire ceremony. My soon-to-be husband sweating as he watched me walk down the aisle on my father’s arm.

I can still hear the songs that filled that church: “On Eagle’s Wings.” “Ave Maria.” And yes, “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?” from The Sound of Music. I was 30 years old, and I had absolutely no shame about choosing that song from my favorite movie. It made me smile, and it made others laugh. I remember the dancing. The cake. The joy bestowed upon what many considered an unlikely couple. I had no idea what was coming.

That day felt like a beginning. I didn’t yet know that it was one chapter of many ahead in the book of my life.

I certainly didn’t foresee four children in my future back then. I didn’t foresee becoming a writer and a broadcast journalist. I didn’t foresee my husband entering politics and becoming the governor of California. I didn’t foresee being a Democratic first lady in a Republican administration. I didn’t foresee losing my parents, several cousins, and dear friends. And I didn’t foresee divorce. I didn’t foresee any of it—the glorious parts or the gutting ones. And I suspect the same has been true for you in your own life.

Your life, no doubt, has also required a seatbelt. An airbag. An oxygen mask. And probably a lifetime supply of tissues. You have navigated loss, grief, illness, betrayal, confusion, loneliness, and somehow, in the middle of all of that, moments of breathtaking beauty and joy. And yet here you are. On this day. Still going. That is no small thing. That is everything. You, my friend, are a survivor. That’s important to remember during these chaotic times.

It’s important to be able to step back and view the world from the perspective of someone who has experienced a lot of twists and turns, unexpected curveballs, or challenges that could’ve thrown you off, taken you out, or defeated you. And yet here you are, still standing. So call yourself a survivor, a hero or heroine, an Architect of Change—whatever word aptly describes what you have been through and still encourages you forward. Choose a word that encourages you to stay on the path and that reminds you that you’ve seen some stuff and have some stories to tell.

Age and experience give you insight into how to navigate the present. And that’s good news, because the present feels, well, bumpy. Scary. Chaotic. Destabilizing. Watching the president get rushed off stage last night after shots were fired outside the ballroom of the White House Correspondents' Dinner was surreal. Thankfully, security acted swiftly and the suspect was detained, but the unfolding story remains a jarring reminder of why so many feel fearful and uncertain at this time.

Yet, even when the world feels like it’s spinning out of control, this is not the time to run and hide. It is the time to lean into the steadying weight of your own wisdom and show up as someone who has survived before and knows they have what it takes to survive again. Now is the moment to share how you managed to get here in one broken, glued-together, beautiful piece.

My friend Cynthia, who was at my wedding and is certainly a survivor, sent me a New York Times essay the other day by the writer Roger Rosenblatt (who we’re also lucky enough to interview this week). In his Times op-ed titled “My Wife Is 85. She Takes My Breath Away,” Rosenblatt shines a light on his love for his wife, but he also acknowledges that his essay is “a love letter to the old ladies in my life.” His wife, he says, is the woman he’s craziest about to this day. “But there are others who have the grace and stature that only long years of hoping and striving—and living—can bestow.”

“Old ladies,” he writes, “are wonders, winking lights in the universe, stars.”

Cynthia texted me the link and enthusiastically said, “This is us!” Now, neither of us is the age of the women Rosenblatt writes about. Cynthia is also widowed, and I am still very much divorced. But honestly, who wouldn’t want to be written about the way Rosenblatt writes about his wife? “She takes my breath away,” he remarks, and the other women in his piece…well, he marvels at them all.

A few days after reading his piece, I came across a video that described marriage at its very best as someone bearing witness to your life. Someone who says, I care about you so deeply that I will be here to see you, to notice you, to remember you. That’s what Rosenblatt is doing. He is bearing witness to his wife’s beauty and evolution, and to women of a certain age. He is saying: I see you. And you are a wonder.

That got me thinking about how this idea of bearing witness shows up in other places, too. My friend Jake Reiner—Rob and Michele Reiner’s son—writes this morning about his parents and who they were away from the spotlight. He bears witness to their lives and legacy, and I am so proud of him.

The truth is, we all want that. We all want someone to bear witness to our lives. To remind us of the road we’ve traveled and to encourage us forward. If you have a partner like that, you are very lucky. And if you find yourself walking forward without that kind of witness, ask your friends, your siblings, your people to walk alongside you. Let them remind you what takes their breath away about you.

I rarely see older women written about the way Rosenblatt did. The breathtaking quality of a woman is usually reserved for her twenties, her youth, her before time. But his column made me remember how my mother used to walk into rooms in her seventies and eighties and still turn heads. The room stopped because she was that kind of woman. The kind who had been through it. The kind whose beauty came not from what hadn’t happened to her, but from everything that had. That is the beauty I want us to claim for ourselves.

“The old ladies I know are almost always looking forward,” Rosenblatt writes in his piece. They are always doing, always engaged, and treat the end of their lives as if they were the beginning. And then he asks: What is their secret? What sets them apart? His answer: “Fierce hope.”

I love that: fierce hope. Not naïve hope. Not passive hope. Fierce hope. The kind that has been tested and beaten down and still gets back up. The kind that looks at problems and says, I can handle this. The kind that looks at family, at country, and at the open road ahead, and asks: What can be made better?

That is the kind of hope that survivors carry. That is the kind of hope that you carry, even when you don’t know it.

So on this day, which is my “not-anymore anniversary,” I find myself asking: What’s next for me? What can be made better in my life? And in our country? The answer to both is quite a lot.

Today has me thinking back not only to who I used to be. It also has me looking ahead, thank God. Age and experience have helped me shed so many black-and-white beliefs that I no longer hold. I’ve learned more about health—physical health, mental health, environmental health—over time. Today I’m more aware of what I put in my body, who I allow in my energy field, and the thoughts that run my world. I also have a different relationship with the news, with politics, and with the so-called powerbrokers that I used to think knew more, knew better, and had my well-being at the center of their work. And I still believe in marriage, but I see love through a different lens today.

The other day, my daughter said I became a different woman after my mother’s death. She said I became softer, gentler, and more in touch with my feelings. Her death did change my life in ways I’m still figuring out. But that’s the thing about life. It's supposed to change you, isn't it? Sometimes it breaks you, and sometimes it helps you evolve into a more involved, aware, compassionate self.

I’m attending a few upcoming weddings of friends’ kids, and I know I’ll look at them and wonder, Do they have a clue what life has in store? Does it matter? A wedding is a metaphor for life. You spend so much energy trying to organize everything to be perfect, and then—poof—life walks in and upends it all. And you begin anew.

So wherever you find yourself on this very day, look back and look ahead. Do not waste your energy on what was, because you’ll need that energy for what’s to come.

Today, I also find myself looking ahead toward my own open field with fierce hope. I am curious and unafraid. I wonder who and what I might meet now that I know myself so much better than that 30-year-old in the white church did.

I think about the people who were with me that day. The ones who have gone on. The ones who are, thank God, still here, still breaking bread with me, still making me laugh, still in community with me (including that man who took me on the ride of my life). And I think about that young woman walking down the aisle years ago today.

What do I wish I had told her?

I stop myself. The truth is, she didn’t need to be told anything. She had everything inside of her already. She just had to live her way into knowing it. As do my kids. As do all of us.

But it is helpful when someone who has walked before you reminds you that you are a survivor. It helps when someone points out that you are still here and still showing up. You have loved and lost and gotten back up more times than you can count. Think about that. Allow that to sink in. You have been cracked open and rebuilt. You have earned every laugh line, every hard-won insight, every gray hair you may or may not be covering up. Look back at everything you’ve lived.

Today I remember that girl. And I see the woman she’s become. I’m grateful to have had a front-row seat in her life. I hope you feel the same about yours.

So on this day, allow yourself to take your own breath away. Own that. Celebrate that. Age is not something to apologize for or outrun. It is the gift you receive for having shown up fully, imperfectly, courageously for your one wild and precious life.

Fierce hope got you here. And fierce hope will carry you forward.

P.S. Happy anniversary to everyone who has loved, lost, and learned to love again, in whatever form that takes. You know who you are.