I Will Survive...

First, a disclaimer.  I don't know as I have all the facts just right in the following blog -- but I know the overall picture is accurate, and that is what matters most for what I'm trying to say.

For no particular reason, this blog is going to be about one of those people I consider a good friend; although, to be honest, I really do not know her that well. That being said, however, what I do know never ceases to amaze me. She is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination and is the kind of person who would agree with, and not be offended by, that statement. For the purposes of this blog, I shall call her Rosie, after the iconic image of female strength, Rosie the Riveter.

Rosie has made mistakes in her life – as have we all. Her life is also, from the sounds of it, very different than mine. I had a very sheltered upbringing in a lot of ways. I knew there were wild youth around me, but I was not one of them. I knew that there were smokers and miscreants, but my life never really intersected with theirs. I’m not sure I ever thought about sex in any direct way, let alone experimented with it. But Rosie, well, Rose could have been a classic story of teen pregnancy had she been less of the woman she is. Her life was a rocky from what little I really know – her mother setting only by negative example what a good mother is, her father raising his daughters alone. Rosie almost seemed doomed to a life unfolding in dark places into which the successful do not peer. But, not really. Her family was a loving one, and while it is true that she herself had a child too young – it was by the grace of her own father that the father of her child was not jailed for his part in the events. The two of them had their child, a beautiful baby boy – but perhaps too beautiful to stay with us. Within 6 months, he was gone. His resting place is one I pass by often as I walk through the cemetery behind my house. Always I dream of what it must have been like to know him, to love him, and then to lose him. He is, in some ways, a representation of the child I will never have. 

Anyway, Rosie suffered, as would any mother. In fact, I think it near impossible for anyone who has not felt what she felt to ever truly know the keening agony she continues to endure even today, though perhaps muted by time and life and the miracles that both can bring us. She gained weight, took up smoking, and from there, I lose track of her story. The details don’t really matter, though. She appeared in my life some time later, a vivacious student with a ready smile and a streak of fire. A student. She was fixing her life by going to school and doing wonderfully at it – being one of those students that any dedicated teacher will not soon forget. She has since finished with us and is now working on her Bachelors while serving as a Home Health Aide. And all the while, she has been with the same beau, though they are both older and wiser and now betrothed to one another. She has toyed with vegetarianism, talked about gastric bypass, tried to quit smoking, tried again and is currently succeeding. She is watching what she eats and the weight is sliding off. As I’ve said, I was not in her life for the darker moments, for the most part, and so I have the unique joy of watching how, like a phoenix, she is rising from what could have been the ashes of her life. She has suffered while I have known her, it is true – the heart of another child that she did not know she was carrying stopped beating and began to slowly poison her, the loss of a beloved grandfather, the frustration of her fiancé’s family not seeing her for the beautiful woman that she is. Any of these alone would be enough to at least temporarily bring even the strongest of people to their knees. But she has pulled through – sometimes raging against the world with language that would make a priest blush – but always she has pulled through.

I have not suffered as she has. I have not struggled as she has. I have my own demons, certainly, but they pale when I look at what she has endured. Her strength, her smile, and her sense of focus are amazing to me. Rosie the Riveter shows us her muscular arm, cocks one eyebrow defiantly and tells us that we can do it. And looking at my own Rosie, I believe it. She has told me countless times that I have touched her life and I have helped her by being a friend and a mentor. But I’m not sure she realizes just how much she has done for me. I don’t precisely admire her mistakes – I wish she had chosen different paths in her life – but, that does not for a moment diminish my respect for her strength to rise above them, to set her sights on a distant goal, and then work to achieve them, with a loving heart for most and a quick word full of vinegar for any who might stand in her way. Stand tall, my friend, despite your insecurities.  Rosie, this one’s for you.

“Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong.” – Ella Fitzgerald