Strength

Strength, my friends, is finite. Yes, I suppose it is possible to rebuild strength, but that takes a village. There are no villages left, just cities where millions live cheek by jowl, never knowing their neighbors, never seeing the poor and disadvantaged. 

There are those among us who are strong, who are bastions of hope when the entire world is turning to shit. There are those we turn to for comfort, for a friendly pat on the back, for a warm hug that says “things suck right now, but they will get better.” 

We expect these men and women to be better than we are, to have the strength of Superman and the wisdom of Solomon, to overcome all the obstacles, to be immune from the things that terrify us. We expect them, often, to protect us from ourselves, and to save us when we do immensely stupid things. We ask them to put others ahead of themselves (and their families), we expect them to drop everything when they’re needed, yet we also expect them to be invisible when they’re not needed. 

But these people are not automatons, they’re not robots. They’re human, like us, but they’ve seen and heard and smelled things no normal being should ever be exposed to. They’ve seen charred lumps that used to be children, they’ve held friends screaming away the last few seconds of life as their blood drains onto the ground, they’ve heard the anguished cries of new widows and orphans. 

Yet these protectors are not allowed to show emotions. They cannot show terror or disgust, they must “be strong,” for us. They must sublimate their feelings, their very humanity, for us. They must be more than human, for us. They must be the adults, comforting us in our fears, for us. 

And when these pillars of strength have exhausted themselves, when they can no longer go on, when they cannot bear to see one more tiny corpse, we abandon them. We say, “You were strong for others, now you must be strong for yourself.” Sometimes, we are even worse: “What have you done for us today?” 

When they have reached the end of their rope, when we find them whimpering in a corner, or hanging from a beam, or with a gun clenched in a cold, stiff hand, we ask, “What happened? He was so strong!” 

It’s simple, really. We asked a human being to be more than a human being, to be an immortal, to be a god. 

They tried, you know. Lord knows, they TRIED. 

But when THEY needed help, when THEY needed strength, when THEY needed comfort…

 

… the well was dry.