A Virtuous Woman - Kaye Gibbons

Thought of this song when I came across this quote & how my husband mentioned once how he associates this song with my health struggles... 

 

 

She'd always been such a calm woman... She knew what she needed then, but if you have to tell someone then it doesn't count. It just doesn't. It's like sending yourself flowers on a birthday and signing the name of the man you love on the card.... If you want to see a man afraid just put him in a room with a sick woman who was once strong. See, I know that this world is built up on strong women, built up and kept up by them too, them kneeling, stooping, pulling, bending, and rising up when they need to go and do what needs to get done. And when a man sees a woman like that sick and hurt, especially the kind of man who knows a woman's strength but can't confess it,when he sees her sick or hurt it terrifies him, like he's witnessing a chunk of the universe coming loose and he knows he doesn't have what it takes to stick it back together. And that man will feel guilty and foolish then too because he never made himself say what he always knew...half the job of finding peace is finding understanding. Don't you believe it to be so?   
~~~ Ruby remembering her grandparents, after her grandmother became ill