Let It Break You Open

The package trembled in Eleanor Roosevelt's hands. Inside, love letters from her husband. Dozens of them. But they were not for her. They were for another woman. Lucy Mercer, their social secretary. Her world collapsed on that September afternoon in 1918.

The betrayal came without warning. Eleanor had given everything to this marriage. Her trust, her devotion, her very identity wrapped up in being Franklin's wife. Now that identity lay shattered at her feet like a broken mirror, each shard reflecting back a different kind of pain.

The old Eleanor died that day. The proper society wife, the woman who lived for others' approval, the girl still desperate to be loved after losing both parents before age ten. She couldn't survive this blow. But from those ashes arose someone extraordinary.

She let her heartbreak break her open. The very qualities that made her suffer—her sensitivity, her empathy, her deep understanding of loneliness—became her greatest strengths. She poured that pain into purpose.