Weakness

He’s such a funny poppet; a collection of contridictions, unfounded assumptions, and unbounded affections.

He thinks he is weak.  Of all his idiosyncrasies, I find this one the hardest to swallow as to me he is anything but.

The weak don’t go home every day as a child to face a wall of brutality, and survive.
The weak don’t leave an unhealthy and abusive marriage at such a young age and seek to form a new life.
They certainly don’t fight for their children and raise them.

The weak don’t work multiple jobs, eat nought but noodles to ensure their children are fed, and put themselves through university in order to create a better life.
They definately do not move across the globe with their family to start afresh.

But most of all, the weak don’t break the chains of abuse they grew up with and love unconditionally.

In my eyes, I don’t see an ounce of weakness.  I see a strong and somewhat resilient man, who has worked hard for this life.  He has the strength to perserve, to love, and to nurture, despite his learnings from the first 20 years.

Maybe his sense of weakness comes from the scale of strength he’s shown… and the hairline fractures and minor chips to his veneer seem like signs of weakness to an otherwise sturdy, hardened copper vessel.  But if that is the case, then the most of us must be made of porceline and would have shattered long ago with the weight of his past.

Either way and more importantly, when I lay in his arms, I only get a sense of calm, love, and inner strength that defies his silly concept of weakness.   The hairline fractures that mark his veneer aren’t weaknesses.  They are external lines of where he’s been: a cross hatching to lines making a fenced motif to keep his past where it belongs, an expression of his strength to endure.

The sort of strength I want by my side to tide out many a moon.

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