Holding yourself together

We praise people for being strong.

We rarely ask why they had to be.

We call it strength

when someone keeps going despite pain.

When they endure uncertainty.

When they show up every day.

When they move forward

with a shrinking bank account

and a tired mind.

But endurance is not the same as strength.

And suffering is not a badge of honor.

Real strength is quieter.

It is choosing to move forward

even when clarity is gone.

Even when your savings no longer feel secure.

Even when the numbers in your account

stop being reassuring.

Even when your mind feels heavier than your body.

But strength is not just pushing through.

Strength is knowing when to stop.

When to rest.

When to ask for help

before exhaustion becomes identity.

We glorify resilience.

But resilience without care

becomes slow erosion.

True strength includes the mind.

It is protecting your mental health

with the same seriousness

you protect your income,

your career,

and your future.

Because life will apply pressure.

And it will.

And if strength feels forced right now,

if continuing feels heavier than it should,

pause.

That weight is not a flaw.

It is information.

Sometimes, the bravest thing you can do

is stop proving how much you can endure

and choose what allows you to keep going.

That is strength too.

And if you ever find yourself struggling in silence,

remember this:

Reaching out is not weakness.

It is awareness.

Talking to someone, a friend, a professional, a counselor,

is not giving up.

It is choosing to stay whole.

Because strong people

do not carry everything alone.

The signature

They tell you it is simple.

A form.

Two pages.

One line to sign.

Black ink.

Any pen color is fine.

As long as you write your name.

Your parent lies in the next room.

Still.

Machines doing the breathing.

Monitors doing the counting.

Lights blinking like tired stars.

The doctor speaks gently.

“Brain activity is minimal.”

“Recovery is unlikely.”

“We can continue life support.”

“We can also.. withdraw.”

Withdraw.

Such a small word for something that feels like falling.

They show you charts, scans, and percentages.

Ten percent.

Five.

Less than one.

Numbers meant to help you decide.

They don’t.

Because you remember other numbers.

Your age when they first carried you.

The nights they stayed awake.

The meals they skipped.

No chart shows that.

No graph measures that.

Someone asks,

“Do you know what your parent would want?”

You say, “I think so.”

You are lying.

Not to them.

To yourself.

They were supposed to grow old.

Repeat stories.

Laugh with your child.

Ask you to drive slower.

Not this.

Not tubes.

Not catheters.
Not sedation.

Then comes the other conversation.

Not with doctors.

With screens.

With statements.

With red numbers.

Daily rate.

Room charge.

Machine fee.

Extended care.

Every sunrise adds a line. 

Every night erases a plan.

You and your sibling check your bank apps in the hallway.

Thinner.

Almost gone.

Money for tuition.

For braces.

For your spouse’s overdue rest.

For emergencies.

For “just in case.”

Now converted into borrowed time.

Your child asks,
“Can we still go on that birthday trip?”

“Next time,” you say.

You hope there is one.

Your spouse asks,
“Are we okay?”

“I think so,” you say.

You are lying again.

You learn new prayers:

Loan.

Advance.

Restructure.

Interest.

If you sign,

the machines will stop.

The bills will stop.

The counting will stop.

You will go home

to silence

and balance.

And guilt.

You will wonder if you traded love for survival.

If you were brave
or cheap.

If you don’t sign, they will continue.

So will the charges.

Days become statements.

Weeks become threats.

You will sell tomorrows

to preserve yesterdays.

Your children will inherit anxiety.

Your spouse will inherit exhaustion.

You will inherit blame.

People will say,

“You are such a good child.”

They will never see
the spreadsheets at 3 a.m.

The eye bags from second jobs at night,
in between your 8 to 5 and nights by their bed.

The credit cards you hide.
The conversations you postpone.

If you let go, you chose self-preservation.

If you hold on, you chose guilt.

That is what they will say.

They are wrong.

You chose loss.

Either way.

You stare at the pen.

It looks harmless.

It is not.

It weighs as much

as every sacrifice before you.

And every consequence after.

 

Once you write your name,

you are choosing

who gets protected.

And who gets broken.

No family should have to decide between dignity and debt.

The financial cost is visible.

The mental cost is not.

Maybe it is time we talk about that.

Crossroads

We love our parents.

They gave us life.
They stayed up when we were sick.
They sacrificed quietly, repeatedly, often without being asked.
They raised us the best way they knew how.

We owe them everything.
Or so we tell ourselves.

Now imagine this.

Your parent is in a hospital bed.
Machines humming.
Time thinning.

A doctor tells you there is a way to extend their life.

Not cure.
Not reverse.
Just extend.

Months.
Maybe years.

But the cost is everything you have saved.

Ten to twenty years of discipline.
Early mornings.
Late nights.
Deferred dreams.
Missed vacations.

Your life savings.

Money meant for your child’s education.
For their safety net.
For their future mistakes and second chances.

Money you hoped would buy them time,
the way you are now being asked
to buy time for someone else.

And suddenly,
love has a price tag.

What do you do?

Do you spend everything
to keep a parent alive a little longer,
knowing they have already lived fully,
loved deeply,
seen the world change?

Or do you protect the future
of the children who have barely begun?

There is no spreadsheet for this.
No financial model.
No morally clean answer.

Only guilt,
no matter what you choose.

And then let me make it harder.

What if it is not your parent?

What if it is your spouse’s parent?

Would you allow your shared savings,
built from both your sacrifices,
to disappear for someone you love by extension,
not by blood?

Would saying no make you selfish?

Or would saying yes make you irresponsible?

At what point
does devotion to the past
begin to steal from the future?

We say family is everything.

But which family do we mean?

The one that raised us?

Or the one that depends on us now?

This is not a question of money.

It is a question of duty.
Of love.
Of fear.
Of the quiet terror of choosing wrong.

Most of us pray
we never stand at this crossroads.

But if we do,
we will learn something uncomfortable.

That love is not limitless.
That resources are.

And that sometimes,
being a good child
and being a good parent
pull us in opposite directions.

There is no perfect answer.

Only the one
you can live with.

Until it isn't

One day, you are healthy.

The next day, you are not.

One day, you are active.

The next day, your world shrinks to a room, a bed, a waiting chair.

One day, time feels generous.

The next day, you count days. Then hours. Then minutes.

One day, you have savings.

The next day, you watch them dissolve into receipts, lab results, hospital corridors.

One day, you are still with them.

The next day, you speak to photographs and silence.

This is how fast life turns.

Yes, this should make us demand better healthcare for the country. That matters.

But before policy debates and grand solutions, there is a quieter truth we often avoid.

We are more fragile than we admit.

And preparation is not pessimism. It is respect for reality.

Prepare your body, not just your career.

Prepare your finances, not just your lifestyle.

Prepare your mind for the fact that strength is temporary, dignity should not be.

Do it for yourself.

And do it for the people who would have to carry you, wait for you, or remember you.

Because preparedness does not prevent loss.

It prevents panic.

And when life inevitably takes something away, preparation gives you one thing back.

Choice.

That is the difference between surviving and breaking

20 visits left

You think you have time.

Then you look at your parents.

Their hair is turning gray.
Their steps are slower.
Their pauses last a little longer than they used to.

It is subtle.
Until you start noticing it everywhere.

We tell ourselves:

“I’ll visit more next year.”
“I’ll call when things calm down.”
“I’ll be more present when life slows.”

But here is the math no one likes doing.

If you see your parents twice a year,
and they have ten years left,

You do not have ten years.

You have twenty visits.

That is it.

Twenty conversations.
Twenty hellos.
Twenty goodbyes.

Time is the only thing
you cannot buy back.

Not with money.
Not with success.
Not with regret.

One day, you will realize
the last time you hugged them
already happened.

And you did not know it then.

This is not about guilt.

It is about awareness.

Because love is not measured in intention.

It is measured in presence.

And presence, like time,
is finite.

So call them.
Sit longer.
Listen without rushing.

Not because something is wrong.

But because
something is precious.

Counting the summers

Older people used to tell me this all the time.

“Enjoy it while it lasts.”
“Blink and it’s gone.”
“You’ll miss this one day.”

I smiled.
I nodded.
I didn’t really understand.

Only now does it make sense.

You do not have decades with your child
the way you think you do.

You have a handful of years
when they still reach for your hand without thinking.
When play happens on the floor, not on a screen.
When bedtime means one more story,
and one more,
and one more.

You have a few summers
where scraped knees are cured by your presence.
Where laughter is loud and uncomplicated.
Where they run toward you, not ahead of you.

You have early mornings and long nights.
Days that blur into routine.
Moments you do not yet recognize as memories.

This is the season people mean
when they say you will miss it.

Count the summers.

Before the baby becomes a toddler.
Before the toddler becomes a child.
Before the child becomes a teenager
who no longer calls your name the same way.

The window is smaller than we admit.

And this season is not gentle.

It asks you to slow down
in a world that rewards speed.

To turn down opportunities
you worked hard to earn.

To accept that your career may plateau
while something else quietly takes priority.

It asks you to be away for work
while wishing you were home for bedtime.

To sit in meetings
while thinking about missed moments.

To measure success
in absences no résumé can explain.

It asks you to give up parts of yourself.

Quiet mornings.
Uninterrupted workouts.
Unclaimed time.

The gym becomes optional.
Rest becomes fragmented.
“Me time” becomes something
you schedule weeks in advance.

Some days feel like loss.

Not because you regret it.
But because sacrifice,
even when chosen,
still hurts.

So when your child calls you,
even when you are exhausted,
even when your mind is elsewhere,

Pause.

Many people would give anything
to return to that moment.
To hear that voice again.
To be needed so simply,
so completely.

This is life.

Not the milestones.
Not the photos.

This.

Messy days.
Short nights.
Trade-offs.
Quiet weight you carry.

Hard, yes.
But deeply meaningful.

And if you are reading this
feeling torn, depleted, or behind,

Hear this:

You are not failing.
You are choosing.

Mental health in parenting
is not about balance.

It is about permission.

Permission to be imperfect.
Permission to let some things wait.

So, fellow parent,
if today felt heavy
but you still showed up,

You are doing well.

Keep going.

These years are finite.

Count the summers.

Most of us only get about ten.

And they matter.

Right now.

How do you like your steak?

Those who know me know I like steak.

Eating, not cooking.

Lately, it struck me that a steak asks a question you cannot avoid:

How done do you want it?

Rare.
Medium rare.
Medium.
Medium well.
Well done.

There is no universally correct answer.
Only an honest one.

Rare is trust.
You accept the heat did just enough, and you stop there.

Medium rare is balance.
Warmth without surrender.
Control without fear.

Medium is compromise.
You want certainty, but not at the cost of everything else.

Medium well leans toward safety.
Fewer surprises. Less ambiguity.

As for me?

Well done. No red.

Not because I do not understand steak.
But because I understand myself.

After a life full of uncertainty,
some people crave tenderness.
Others crave clarity.

Neither is wrong.

What is wrong is ordering your life
the way someone else insists you should.

We do it all the time.

We stay in situations that feel undercooked
because we are told to be patient.

Or we overcook ourselves chasing certainty,
until what once made us tender disappears.

We call it maturity.
Responsibility.
Strength.

Sometimes it is just fear of choosing for ourselves.

Doneness is personal.

What feels rich and alive to one person
feels raw to another.

What feels safe to some
feels dry to others.

The mistake is not choosing rare or well done.

The mistake is ignoring your own signal
because someone else is louder.

So order your steak the way you like it.

Live your life the way you can actually digest.

Satisfaction does not come from doing it right.

It comes from knowing yourself well enough
to ask for what you need
without apology.

Order it your way.

Notice how it feels.

Peace starts there.

Well enough to show up

We like to talk about generations.

The Silent Generation learned to endure.
Boomers learned to push through.
Gen X learned to be tough.
Millennials learned to carry burnout.
Gen Z is learning to name their feelings.
Gen Alpha is growing up watching all of it unfold.

The commentary never ends.

But here is the quieter truth.

The younger the generation,
the more openly they talk about mental health.

Not because they are weaker.
But because they are less willing to pretend they are fine.

And regardless of generation,
one reality remains.

Mental strain finds all of us.

As a husband, a father, and a son,
I carry different responsibilities.

But they all lead to the same question:

Am I well enough to show up?

Not just to provide.
Not just to function.
But to be present, steady, and safe
for the people who rely on me.

That question pushed me to look deeper.

I watched the talks people skip because they are uncomfortable.
I read the articles we usually bookmark and never return to.

Eventually, I decided to undergo mental health responder training.

Not to become an expert.
But to become better prepared.

I learned that distress does not always announce itself as crisis.

Sometimes it hides behind competence.
Behind humor.
Behind reliability.

If you are reading this quietly,
nodding more than you expected,
carrying thoughts you rarely say out loud,

This part is for you.

You are not alone.
Your feelings are valid.

Struggling does not mean you are failing.
It means you are human.

And if you are well right now,
that is not a reason to look away.

It is a reason to be ready.

Learn how to listen.
Learn how to respond.
Learn when to step in and when to step back.

Consider becoming a mental health responder.

Not to fix people.
But to make sure no one feels unseen
when it matters most.