I Believe That Strength Has More Than One Definition

“Ma has cancer”. This sentence began the hardest journey of my life, one I’m still on. One that has completely broken me down. Mind racing, tears streaming, I couldn’t imagine what life would be like. My grandmother, the person I imagined always being there for me, was dying. The one person who I never saw give up. Always picking up the pieces, my grandma was truly Super Woman. I don’t know how she did it. All I know is that she was my definition of strength; until I saw that my entire family fully encompassed that quality as well. In the two months to follow, I discovered everything that strength meant.

Deteriorating from the cancer, strength is when your rock and the heart of the family still insists on telling us all that she’s fine and that she is only concerned about what we will do after she’s gone. Strength is when she planned out her entire funeral, calling it her “party”; making jokes about how she felt bad for not being able to give the caterer an exact date. Her daughters, showing their inheritance of Ma’s strength, became her nurses and did not leave her side. Strength is when all five of her children came together to take care of the responsibilities my grandmother once effortlessly completed by herself. Cooking, grocery shopping, taking care of the family, she used to be a one woman show. Strength is the five of them planning how we would survive after she’s gone. Strength is when your grandfather turns to his faith to cope with the impending loss of the love of his life and still being able to smile through it all. Strength is when my little cousin, six years younger than I, followed me around like a puppy to make sure that I was okay. Wearing sunglasses inside, strength was when my aunts and I tried to cover up that we were crying, pulling it together for Ma. Strength is when we all came together on the day it would end to support each other and to tell Ma that we love her one last time..

Strength is holding her hand as she took her last breath.

Strength is being able to survive this as a family and being there for each other in whatever way possible; especially in those first few weeks. Strength is when we all kept it together to make conversation, be welcoming, friendly, and not complete messes during the four painstakingly long wakes. Carrying her coffin into the church on the day we said goodbye for the last time, my brother and cousins had more strength than I could ever bear. Strength is when your dad breaks down; allowing himself to feel the pain that he always hides. Strength is our family getting through this first year…together.

Strength is trying to live up to everything she wanted for me, even without her here.

I’m trying Ma, I’m using the strength I got from you.