When the poem, The Year of No Grudges was posted by Button Poetry in December 2021, Andrea Gibson had already announced their cancer diagnosis a few months earlier. The poem is a tender meditation on what it means to choose love—not because it’s easy, but because it’s honest. “Holding grudges,” they cry, “shrinks the heart,” while forgiveness is a deep grace worth striving for.

The poem serves as a clarion call for taking personal responsibility—for doing the work of being human, beginning with ourselves. Gibson honors the emotional and moral discipline required of those who want to create real, lasting change. Though written in an intimate voice, apparently addressed to one person—perhaps their wife—it reminds me that self-awareness, healing, and emotional maturity are not luxuries. They are prerequisites for learning how to live together.

I heard the poem as a reflection on radical empathy and forgiveness. Gibson doesn’t glorify harm; rather, they call us to see the full complexity of people, even those who have caused pain. In a polarized world, they offer a crucial civic lesson: lasting change does not come from demonizing others, but from staying present in the hard work of relationship, truth-telling, and repair.

VIDEO: Andrea Gibson - The Year of No Grudges

I’m new to Gibson’s work, and I find their heart, mind, and insight to be a welcome refuge in a challenging time. One entry point is the newsletter they co-authored with their wife, Megan Falley: Things That Don’t Suck. Megan continues to write there. Two days after Andrea’s passing, she shared a tribute that was both heart-wrenching and heart-filling.

ARTICLE: A List of Things I Want To Tell Andrea