The Light Has Gone Out Of My Life

Teddy Roosevelt Had The Worst Valentines Day Ever, And Then He Changed The World.

On February 14, 1884 Theodore Roosevelt endured much. On that day, his mother died of typhoid, his wife passed away due to complications with childbirth, and he was a father for the first time.

In his diary entry that day he drew and "X" and wrote a single line that said, "The Light Has Gone Out Of My Life".

Teddy was a 26 year old man in Victorian society whom was now the father of a daughter, now without the two most important women in his life.

The man who would eventually envision the construction of the Panama Canal and global hegemony of the United States saw himself unfit to be a parent and he felt ill-equipped to go on with life as he had long known it. He resigned his seat in the state assembly, left his new daughter in the care of his older sister, and left his native New York City to live in the Dakota territory to be a rancher.

T.R. had one of the strongest wills to self of any American president, yet he was so broken at this moment in time when he was faced with profound loss and new responsibilities.

His time as a rancher in the Dakotas transformed him from a trust fund New York aristocrat to an eccentric strong willed giant of a human being. During his time there he was vigilante bounty hunter and cattle rancher. These experiences prepared him to weed out corruption out of the New York City police department as commissioner. Later he would mobilize the worlds largest Navy as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. To much of the chagrin of the Republican party, he ushered in a new era of progressive reform as Governor of New York and as President, forever changing the role of the role of government in the United States. He would change U.S. foreign policy to assert the dominance of the American economy and military and connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.


What we can learn from Roosevelt is that we should not be distressed if we embark upon a desire to reevaluate our purpose and identity. Sometimes it is good for people to travel unwalked paths and try on new lives. It can be positive to test oneself by immersion in the unfamiliar in order to gain the confidence and fortitude to pursue meaningful new endeavors.

This Valentine's day as some of us celebrate love, let us appreciate how tragedy and sadness can shape our souls and prepare us to move the world.