Bitter or Better

Well acquainted with family drama and adversity since childhood, newspaper columnist Caryn Sullivan continued to encounter an overlapping string of family crises with a stoic resolve that left her in an emotional cocoon.A few months after joining what she called the ''freakin' widows club'' in 2009, she met a priest at a social function and unloaded her grief, seeking answers. Sullivan embraced his life-changing advice: ''In the face of adversity, we have a choice. We can be bitter, or we can be