A parent’s worst nightmare: and what I learned from it

Death is never easy. When it’s the death of a child, it seems unforgivable. I spent this past weekend with my childhood friend celebrating the life of her twelve-year-old son who lost his battle with cancer. Cancer sucks.

The gathering was everything you would expect: tears, memories, grief, laughter, and more tears.

What did surprise me, though, was the incredible outpouring of strength.

It was more than offers of condolences, held hands, or passed boxes of kleenex though.

It was a physical- and energetic- embrace that grounded you to the earth and gave you the courage to face another moment.

Because sometimes in life that’s what we need: the courage and strength to make it through another moment. Not a month. Not a day. But the next 60 seconds.

For some absurd reason, though, we often expect women to innately have the strength of 40 people.

We don’t expect a…