No Small Bravery

Brave is a silly little word. We like to use it for any number of things – getting on rollercoasters, hopping in planes, going to the gym, asking out the girl. Sometimes it has weight, meaning, substance, and sometimes it doesn’t. I’m here to shed light on the certain kind of brave that happens when it’s all you can do to wake up in the morning.

I have a few notes on this specific kind of brave. The one I know the best. The one that begs for just one less hard thing to do today. The one that is pokes and pain, nausea and exhaustion, tears and pom-pom shaking, occasionally bursting into song.

I’ve found that every single day, in the lives of children and parents, siblings, caregivers, foster families, and all of the beautiful combinations thereof, there is a certain brave in literally just waking up and daring to have hope.

It’s brave to take a medicine at two in the morning when it takes every bit of effort to keep it down. It’s brave to look a doctor in the eye and say you want to go home and be at peace. It’s brave to let a nurse help you bathe your bedridden child when it’s something you’ve always done for them. It’s brave to live one more day. It’s brave to ask questions and to advocate. It’s brave to fear tomorrow and to face it anyways.

It’s brave to ask for another way, another opinion, another day, another try.

I’ve found that there is no small bravery. If they woke up and decided to live another day, fight another day, or even to leave this Earth, when I tell a child or family that I’m proud of them, I mean it. It’s hard to hope and it’s hard to let go. It’s bravery in every piece of broken glass they’re trying to hold together.

For caregivers, I want to hold your hands and say that being brave for your child is not the suppression of fear or truth or emotion – it’s being who you’ve always been for them for just one more minute, one minute at a time. They know you and you know them, both of you deserve honesty and comfort in the hardest moments. When I ask you to be brave for your child today, I ask you to acknowledge the pain and the fear, and I ask that you take another breath and decide to keep going. It’s big and it’s brave – and often it’s the only thing in your hands. Create a space that’s loving and supportive because at the end of all of this, that’s the part your child remembers: being loved through it.

A very special boy taught me a lot about being brave. So did the people who love him. He was brave every single moment of every day that he chose to wake up, smile, love people, and have hope. The people who loved him did the same, plus advocating for him, asking questions, and choosing honesty when it was hard. To have been that kind of brave until the very end makes me believe that I can be brave too, coming to work even when I miss him, and it hurts.

I always tell kids “this is the last hard thing you have to do today,” and most of the time it’s just waking up to tell me if they’re okay or not. There’s no small bravery. Ask any question, take every moment to hope, don’t restrict emotion, be afraid and hurt and do it anyway. Bravery happens in the small moments that you breathe and cry and beg for a different life, then wake up and trudge through this one anyways.