“You must be strong.” – Alla Gutoff
“You have to face whatever scares you and deal with it head on.” – Maria Prytula
“To be human is to be tested over and over, and we usually need abundant help from others.” -- Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
What the three quotes above have in common is that these statements were made by women who survived World War II. The first two, my late mother, as well as my mother-in-law, began life in the chaos of Stalin’s Soviet Union.
Not surprisingly, there was no typical small-child complaining when I was growing up. This simply got shut down with a “Oh, yes? Are you unhappy with your warm house, clean water, plentiful food, and new clothing?”
Of course, this Keep Calm and Carry On ethos is problematic for a whole host of reasons. Humans have to express themselves. In the long run, however, I did learn how to have an attitude of gratitude. It just took a long time to get there.
What I also gained from my very imperfect upbringing is that I had the strength, even though I didn’t believe it for one minute, to survive anything that came my way. “…I do think that we are a lot tougher and more capable of moral courage than cynics suggest, and that we benefit from the survivors among us,” says Madeline Albright, “…it is in the abnormal times that we learn the most about ourselves and others.”
My late mother-in-law said “You have to face whatever scares you…” in the days after 9/11, when I truly had no idea how to navigate my new reality while parenting young children. Maria was truly a woman who faced every challenge with courage and grace.
I refer to such women as the fierce and formidable women of yesteryear.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/opinion/madeleine-albright-coronavirus.html