"You must be strong"

Said the lady in line behind me at Wal-Mart. 

I can still hear my husbands chuckle when she followed that statement up by "you look so sweet, but you have to be strong." His reply, "she is very strong." I am quite sure his chuckles were more because she said I looked sweet. Who me? Of course!  

All of this banter coming from a conversation with Jake that started over her donning a pair of scrubs. This lady works at Terrell State Hospital. We began small talk in line about how I have a degree in psychology and now I am going to nursing school. And that I could be seeing her next semester or at some point in my studies to complete a clinical round there. She asked if I had any experience in psychiatric hospitals and when I told her that I did a clinical round at the maximum security psychiatric prison just outside Lubbock her jaw hit the ground.  Yes ma'am not only did I have to do a clinical round there but I had to counsel there, in the pediatric and adolescent wing. Yes, there was a children's wing in this facility. 

I would agree that one could think of someone able to complete such tasks would have a heart of stone, I however do not. I would also agree that semester of undergraduate studies showed me just what my heart was made of, mush. Between the rounds at the psychiatric prison and the rounds at the children's hospital I should have taken out stock in Kleenex. Lord knows I gave them a lot of my hard earned money those 6 months. 

I don't have a heart of stone. I am not strong. I am actually a cry baby who wears my feelings and emotions on my sleeves. A true sap, at its finest. I guess you could say I just have a knack for working with troubled and sick children. I always have. Does it hurt my heart of mush? Absolutely. Because not only do I have a heart of mush, I also have a heart for children in general. All children. I would own a house large enough to take in every orphan both domestic and international if the good Lord gave it to me. 

It always strikes me differently when I hear people say, "you must be strong", after hearing some of my stories. Some see it as strong, I just see it as having no other way.