Statue of a Woman

I admired the Steel Woman. She had been through greater trials than I, such pains and sorrows, and yet... she stood before me with her chin up, even as I cast my eyes down to the abyss.

I was ashamed, embarrassed to admit that I was broken. How easy had my life been? Hadn't I been handed the world? And yet, here I stood, chin to my chest, eyes foggy and defeated. How could I look her in the face? How could I, in my weakness, bear witness to such strength?

But the Steel Woman, tempered by life, had learned to be unrelentingly kind. And so, she laid a hand upon my downturned head, and bade me to look up.

And she smiled at me.

"It's okay," she said. "This, too, shall pass."

And then she gestured to the sanguine welkin...

"'Surely the sky lies open: let us go that way!'"

And so, the Steel Woman, my mother, lifted me from my knees and pushed me to the stars.