What Strength Has Been Unleashed in You?

Lilacs in September

Shocked to the root
like the lilac bush
in the vacant lot
by the hurricane–

whose black branch split
by wind or rain
has broken out
unseasonably

into these scant ash-
colored blossoms
lifted high
as if to say

to passersby
What will unleash
itself in you
when your storm comes?

-Katha Pollitt


It's been just over six years since I lost my mother, who died less than a month after D-Day #2, when I got the whole story of my husband's infidelities. All I could do during that emotional maelstrom was curl into myself and ride out the storm. I felt small and lonely. I felt abandoned.
But with my mother gone, without that person who fought for me, I had to learn to fight for myself. In many ways, without her voice outside of me, I carry it inside. I stand up for myself when before I would have backed down. I've learned to respectfully disagree instead of swallowing my words. I've finally understood what she meant when she urged me to "just show up." It took a time when showing up was all I could do. In the days following her death, just showing up felt Herculean. But it was enough. I was enough. All those years of thinking I had to perform or achieve to earn people's love or admiration or respect...when all I had to do was just show up.
It's a lesson I try and teach my own kids. That they're enough simply because they are. And I hope when the storms come their way, they'll wonder what strength and beauty will be unleashed in them.