Strong Shoulders

When Mom was dying, it felt like our world was falling
apart, and I didn’t know how we’d survive losing her.
Dad told me I needed strong shoulders to bear the weight
of life’s burden, to withstand the sorrow that I felt and
the grief that assailed me after she was gone.

Strong shoulders to hold myself together, to keep from
drowning in grief, to help me pretend I was strong enough
to face tomorrow without Mom. Strong shoulders, Dad said,
and I tried to have strong shoulders, to stand up to the challenges
life sent me, but it felt like a mask I had to wear to hide my feelings.

Strong shoulders meant I couldn’t let anyone see me crying
because I didn’t want to disappoint Dad, but it meant I couldn’t
let myself cry, couldn’t reveal how I truly felt to anyone, not even
myself, had to put on that mask so Dad would think I was ok
and would never know I was crying inside behind the mask.

I pretended to be strong. That way Dad would think I was ok,
and he wouldn’t worry about me. He had enough to deal with.
Doctors at the hospital. Hospice nurses. The funeral director.
Losing mom. He never spoke about how he felt, I’m guessing,
because he thought he needed to have strong shoulders, too.

So, each night we wept silently in our rooms, not wanting to add
to the other’s burdens, needing strong shoulders during the day
to assure ourselves and others that we were doing all right,
that we would survive without Mom, even if it meant holding
our grief inside, even if it meant we could never stop mourning.

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Bruce Black received his MFA from Vermont College. He is the author of Writing Yoga (Shambhala) and editorial director of The Jewish Writing Project. His poetry, personal essays, and stories have appeared in numerous publications, including The MidAtlantic Review, The Amethyst Review, Write-Haus, Bearings, Super Poetry Highway, Poetica, The Lehrhaus, Soul-Lit, and elsewhere. He lives in Highland Park, IL.