By Elizabeth Pershing 
Intellectually, I understand the compliment given to me more times than I can count: “You are so strong.”
My first thought has always been that I didn’t realize there was another option.
After becoming a widow at 42 with three young children, “strong” is the least of my concerns, but it seems to be a catch-all for all other adjectives you might use to describe me. This list includes, but is not limited to: brave, amazing, fighter, strong, survivor, and my personal favorite, which is very underutilized, badass.
I know they’re used as a kind gesture to offer a grieving widow and her grieving children the good fortune of having a “strong mom.” People on the outside are comforted by your kind eyes, small smile, and polite children, who are just sad enough, but not so much as to make everyone else around them uncomfortable. We make our grief palatable for all. We are strong. And really, isn’t that what everyone is looking for? Confirmation that we are all sad, but your strong mom will keep it all together, keep the ship sailing, and hardly ask for help?
Now, for those of us lucky enough to have a select few people, this task is a little easier. It is helped by the fact that you have a safe place to breathe, where you’re not so “strong,” where you can cry, yell, and be vulnerable without judgment.
A mother’s grief takes the back burner, as it should. You learn to cry in the shower, in the car on a Marco Polo, while kids are at school, or my personal favorite, to the representative at American Express who makes you tell no less than six people that your husband just died, and could you please keep my credit card open?
In those early days, there are so many reminders that you are not strong, or more accurately, that you are sick and tired of being strong. People attempt to help, but even the most helpful need to go back to their lives. People break promises about being there for your children.
But not you—you are the mom.
You are the one getting them up for school when none of you wants to get out of bed. You make the lunch because it might be the only thing they eat all day. You make the doctor’s appointments, the therapy appointments, and sign them up for sports and activities because it’s important for them to do normal kid things. There are still orthodontic appointments, dentist appointments, school conferences. You wipe their tears, sit with them when their grief is too much, you make fast food runs because you will do anything to take that sadness away, even for five minutes. You check homework even though you all know it doesn’t really matter. You know what matters, and it’s not a reading log, but you do it anyway.
You are strong.
Your children grow up too soon because they understand real loss, real grief, and they have empathy for those who get it. They will always look at the world through jaded eyes because they know life is not fair. And it kills you. It tears at you to see your babies thrown into the world of fear and loss, to know there is innocence they can never get back.
But you cry in the shower. You wipe your tears and drive to hockey. You show the world how strong you are, even though you feel like an imposter. You get annoyed with wonderful friends who have supportive husbands, because, well, that sounds pretty nice. You complain about being Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Elf on the Shelf, but you still love it. You do it because you are strong. You take compliments on how well you are dealing with it all. “We all have good and bad days, but we are hanging in there,” you reply to every single person who asks. Is it true? Yes. But it doesn’t even scratch the surface.
When they tell you that you are “strong,” I see you. I understand what the day-in and day-out of being strong really looks like. It is messy. It is full of tears, missed days of school, late homework, fast food, dirty dishes, long, tearful baths, a good cry to a friend, forgetting permission slips, bringing the buns because it’s all you can muster, and keeping life going. But you are trying, you really are. With every cell in your body you try every day to be mom and dad. Cheerleader and challenger. Comforter and motivator.
You know what strong really means. It is a sad club to belong to, but it’s also filled with joy, snuggles, tears of happiness, and gratitude for getting to be their mom.
Yes, you are strong—and don’t you forget it.
by Lisa Appelo 
by Her View From Home 
