Strong Girls

Today delivered three very strong women to me within a window of two hours after work.  My head continues to mull over the impressive power, care and energy that each of them have displayed in their respective lives.  They leave me feeling humbled by their strength, dedication and generosity of time, love and care.

Strong Girl Number One is one of my favourite coffee servers at my favourite coffee spot.  She's very present, firm in her views and opinions, passionate about her role as a single parent to her young daughter, and filled with an inner flame that burns bright.  I was thrilled to run into her and shared a warm new year's embrace.  Her former co-worker recently had her first baby.  Not only is this new mother relatively new to Canada (and English and the cost of living in Toronto and...), she strikes me as being very unlike Strong Girl in terms of temperment.  However, their relationship is real, raw and powerful. SG proudly displayed the photo of the new baby on her cell for my viewing pleasure (very cute!) and is presently deeply involved in bolstering the new mother's powerful feelings of fear and inadequacy.  I love the fact that two women whose lives crossed in a local coffee shop, serving, brewing, and cleaning, are capable of such depth in their relationship.  The new mother is very blessed indeed!

Strong Girl Number Two appeared ten minutes later at the grocery store.  Again, new year's greetings were exchanged and we did a quick catch up on each other's lives.  Hers has been less than simple of late.  Both of her parents are seriously ailing (cancer, blindness) and her brother (not yet fifty) has been fighting his own war with cancer.  Despite being equipped for what could be an easy, leisurely life, this Strong Girl has embraced a life of duty and care for her compromised family members.  She is now a shopping, meals-on-wheels, get-people-to-appointments expert.  This was not a path she expected to be on at this point, I am sure.  However, she radiates positivity (while admitting to hidden inner struggles) and has clearly accepted and embraced the packages that life has delivered to her.  Should I ever find myself in similar circumstances, I can only hope to have the positivity, energy and resilience that she displays.  Her life has been a grind of late by many measures and yet, somehow, she injected me with whatever is keeping her spirits high and her smile bright.

Strong Girl Number Three is a true hero for me at this time.  Her former partner was diagnosed with terminal cancer less than three months ago, precipitating a journey that was surely a far cry from anything that she ever might have imagined.  She quickly became the prime agent of care and support, having to wrap her head around watching him decline rapidly, learning to navigate the daily rhythm of hospital life, looking to a future which sentences her young son to a life without his father, getting "affairs in order", planning a funeral, allowing herself to take temporary leave of a job that she loves, and some how finding the strength to rise every morning and face the day, no matter what challenges and difficulties awaited her and hers.  Her son's father passed away this week, bringing some closure to their situation, as well as  the very present tasks of funeral preparations, bolstering her son, and acknowledging the abundant expressions of love, grief and support offered up by the multitudes that care so much about her and her family.  Tonight, while receiving guests in her home, she was radiant.  Tired, thin but radiant.  She had the look of pottery that had been fired.  She seems to have evolved into a completely new person, courtesy of this experience and loss.  She now possesses the expanded heart of one who has said good-bye for the last time.  This Strong Girl is shining brightly tonight.  She has been through the fire and has come out the other side.  Peace to her and her son.

I am humbled but happy with the encounters that I had with these three formidable women today.  Good things do indeed come in three's!

To their strength!
Wondering Woman