Where Strength Is All You Need
The world is full of noise, and you’re the silence he trusts.
Sometimes, love is just staying close when the world is too much — not fixing, not rushing. Just being there, peacefully, where strength is all you have.
It doesn’t stop as long as you’re breathing.
Being a mother, that is.
And you know what? Motherhood is part of living, whether you have one or not.
It could be your nephew, niece, or your own.
Sometimes, it’s not the kind of mothering you imagined.
Especially when your child moves through the world differently —
when sounds are louder, lights are harsher,
and the rules everyone else follows don’t seem to apply.
You learn to read the invisible.
You learn to listen without words.
You become fluent in knowing
that what makes sense to you — or to most people —
might not make sense at all to your son or daughter.
And that’s okay.
It doesn’t have to.
You learn to meet them where they are,
not where the world expects them to be.
And that is unconditional love.
When we’re outside, and the world turns loud — too loud —
he covers his ears.
A siren, a car horn, a speaker from somewhere
blaring something we didn’t ask for.
It happens quickly.
And when it does, I don’t rush him.
I just look at him and ask gently, “Are you okay?”
That’s all.
No fixing.
No pretending the noise isn’t overwhelming.
Just presence.
Just a kind of steady strength that gives him permission to feel what he feels.
And in that small exchange, I see it —
he knows I understand.
He knows I’m there.
You have to be peacefully strong enough to believe that things will be okay.
Strong enough to believe that one day, he’ll find his own rhythm.
That he’ll know what to do when I’m no longer here
to whisper, “It’s alright.”
That the world will feel a little less sharp,
and he’ll know how to soften the edges.
And I hold onto that.
Not because it’s easy, but because it’s necessary.
Because that’s what love does.
It hopes forward.
And because strength is all you need.
