How Grief Taught Me to Stop Performing Strength

This piece was written by one of our dear readers—a woman with something real to say. Each month, we handpick the best submissions for Dear Reader because we’re after that PROVOKED bite: truth, intelligence, and heart. These stories come from women our age—women who’ve lived enough to know better and still care enough to tell it anyway. Because being seen and heard matters. Because storytelling is how we stitch ourselves to one another. And because when one woman speaks her truth, another finally recognizes her own. — Susan Dabbar, Editor in Chief

We’re taught to hold everything together. But sometimes real strength means falling apart—and letting someone else catch you.

The morning my mother called, struggling to breathe, I knew something was wrong. She had sounded fine the day before when we spent the afternoon together. I called 911 and told her I would meet her at the hospital. Hours later, an oncologist took her hand, looked at us, and said gently that her organs were failing and her blood tests showed a rare blood disease. My mother, who had faced so much with dignity, thanked him and asked how long she had. He paused before saying that if she entered hospice soon, she might live through the weekend.

My sister arrived the next day. I don’t remember calling her or anyone else. Shock filled every corner of my body. Mom was admitted to hospice on Friday and passed away on Sunday, one week before her 90th birthday.

In the days that followed, I went into automatic mode. I made arrangements, called relatives, and comforted my sister and husband. I didn’t cry. I didn’t rest. I told myself I was strong. But my body told a different story. My chest was tight, my appetite gone, my sleep fractured.

I thought strength meant holding everyone else up. But as it turns out, it means having the courage to fall apart—and the willingness to still keep going.

The Cost of Holding It Together

It wasn’t the first time I had taken control. Three years earlier, after my mother suffered a stroke during COVID, my sister and I had flown across the country to move her to an assisted living community. The airports were eerily empty, the water fountains taped off, and we wore our face shields and masks through every step of the trip.

My mother didn’t want to move. She missed her house, her friends, her garden club, and the independence that had defined her. She’d been president of her HOA, chaired committees, and played mahjong and bingo each week. Leaving all that behind broke her heart.

She cried often and refused to take part in community meals or activities. She felt self-conscious about her walker and the way she held utensils. I became her caretaker, chauffeur, and closest companion.

At times, she directed her frustration at me. I absorbed it quietly, convincing myself that staying strong for her was the only way to love her well. Women our age are conditioned to hold the family center together. And when the center breaks, we forget the toll it takes. I didn’t realize then that I was performing strength, not living it.

The Call That Saved Me from Myself

After the funeral, my sister flew home, and the house fell silent. I stopped answering calls. I avoided friends. I couldn’t sit still, but I couldn’t rest either. My husband, the most patient man I know, finally took my hand and said he was worried about me. He asked me to talk to someone. I nodded but did nothing.

The next day, the woman who owned the funeral home called to see how I was. When I told her the truth, that I was empty and angry, she referred me to an online grief coach named Michelle.

From our first session, Michelle felt like a lifeline. She’d also experienced deep loss and understood the disorienting mix of guilt, sadness, and exhaustion that followed. I told her about my mother’s final months, about the move she never wanted, and about my guilt for forcing it. Michelle listened and reflected back something I’d never considered: I’d spent my life performing strength for everyone else and had no idea how to show weakness—even to myself.

Learning to Break Open, Not Apart

Over the next month, we met several times a week. Slowly, something softened. My husband noticed it before I did. He told me I was starting to sound like myself again. I realized he was right when I cried during yoga for the first time. Surrounded by strangers, I finally let my body release what I’d been holding. The truth cracked something open in me. For the first time, I stopped explaining and simply let myself be cared for.

For years, I believed that caring for others meant keeping my own emotions under control. I thought strength meant staying busy and dependable. It took losing my mother to see that true strength means letting yourself collapse when you need to.

With Michelle’s encouragement, I began journaling my feelings—the guilt, the anger, the loneliness—and the relief that came with no longer being on call. She also taught me a simple breathing exercise that I still use. I inhale for four counts, hold for seven, and exhale for eight. It calms my body and helps me see what I’m really feeling.

I learned that feeling pain isn’t a sign of weakness.

Now, when I hear a song that reminds me of my mother, I no longer turn it off. I pull over, listen to the full song, and let the tears come. When the music ends, gratitude always follows—for the years we shared, for the lessons she taught me, and for the quiet understanding that love doesn’t disappear when life ends.

I still miss her. I always will. But I no longer confuse holding it together with healing.

Grief didn’t break me. The performance of “being fine” did.