The Lady Of The House • Strength and a Good Man

Strength and a Good Man

I once thought that strength was a solitary pursuit—a single person triumphing in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

Strength, it seems, is helping the person who is facing those insurmountable obstacles. It’s a quiet steadfastness that can be so subtle that it might go unnoticed, because it becomes so relied upon, so ingrained, that it somehow disappears within the fabric of our daily lives.

I did not know that strength would wear glasses. Strength, as it turns out, tells terrible jokes. I was not expecting strength to have red hair and freckles, but there it is.

I can say nothing whatsoever of love. I don’t know that I understand what it means anymore, not after the year we’ve been through, not when my very definition of it has changed and grown so much. I can speak to you quite frankly of strength though. The countless hours of train trips, hand holding, waiting, working, translating fear into hope. Loving when someone is scared and unlovable.

I was 19 when I grabbed his hand in an amusement park. I did not know how that one gesture would change my life.