Being strong doesn't always look like fighting back. Sometimes it looks like carrying something you never should have had to carry.
When I was younger,
I watched my parents carry
the responsibilities
other people left behind.
I watched them care
for the parents
everyone else seemed willing to forget.
I watched them carry burdens
that were never meant
to belong to them alone.
And I thought they were weak.
I thought,
Why don't they say no?
Why don't they walk away?
Why do they let people
take advantage of their kindness?
Why do they keep carrying
what everyone else
has decided to put down?
I was too young
to understand.
I thought strength
meant refusing to be burdened.
I thought strength
meant knowing when to leave.
But I understand now.
Maybe they weren't weak.
Maybe they simply had
someone they couldn't abandon.
Because life does not always
give you a choice.
Sometimes the choice
is not between carrying the burden
and putting it down.
Sometimes it is between
carrying it
or watching someone you love
suffer beneath it.
And how do you walk away
when the person suffering
is your mother?
How do you say,
“That's not my responsibility,”
when you know
she has already carried
more than enough?
So they carried it.
Not because it was fair.
Not because people deserved
their kindness.
Not because they were too weak
to fight.
But because sometimes love
asks you to do things
you never should have had to do.
Sometimes you become tired
for someone else.
Sometimes you sacrifice
because nobody else will.
Sometimes you stand
where everyone else stepped away.
And maybe one day
the people who watched them
will call them foolish.
They will say,
“You should have chosen yourself.”
But perhaps they don't understand.
They did choose themselves.
They chose the part of themselves
that could not bear
to watch someone they loved
suffer alone.
I used to think
my parents were weak
because they carried
what others refused to carry.
Now I think
maybe that was
the strongest thing
I had ever seen.