carbonated joy

Who is the strongest person you know? I’ve met some pretty tough people, football players and fighters, pro wrestlers and soldiers. They were pretty impressive individuals, BUT, not the strongest person I know. I’ve even met Chuck Norris, he was a super cool guy, BUT, he wasn’t the strongest person I know.
The strongest person that I know is 4′ 11″, she sometimes walks with a cane and hangs out with a weenie dog named Stretch. It’s my mom, Marilyn Lang. She is the strongest person that I’ve ever met.
My dad was a tough guy, an all American MAN. He was John Wayne and Superman all wrapped up into one hairy package. He was tough, but he wasn’t as strong as my mom.
She was strong enough to beat the odds that everyone saw and the ones that nobody knew about.
The summer before she turned 8 she was diagnosed with polio. Her life would never be the same. It was often hard and painful. She was strong enough to beat polio, although, like Jacob in the Old Testament, her struggle left her with a limp. She was strong enough to live with the limp. True strength…real strength comes from living with weakness. What weakened her legs FOREVER strengthened her spirit.
She was strong enough to raise three kids, she birthed two and chose one (but, she did have labor pains the day my sister, Hope, was born 6,645 miles away).
She was strong enough to simply be herself and encourage her kids to do the same.
She was strong enough to, by her example, instill something in us that is unbreakable…a faith. By herself, she took…sometimes dragged…us to church. My brother, Mark, and I are ONLY in the business of changing lives because She was strong enough to change our lives.
She was strong enough to work hard at a school cafeteria, a bank and a pharmacy. Only to come home and work hard some more.
She was strong enough to get in the face of people twice her size if they were messing with the people she loved. Sometimes she even used a footstool to do this.
She was strong enough to love one man though good, bad and ugly. Then, just when things were getting beautiful, She was strong enough to carry on with life, when that man left the dance way too early.
She was strong enough to dance alone.
She was strong enough to make a new life.
She is strong enough to do the right thing, even when it wasn’t the easy or popular thing.
She is strong enough to tell the truth.
She is strong enough to love.
She is strong enough to forgive the hurters and the haters.
She is strong enough to dance like nobodies watching.
My little Mother is the biggest badass I know.
Life has thrown her some serious curveballs, sometimes it still does.
She will beat them.
She is just that strong.
Don’t mess with her.
She is THE strongest person I’ve ever known.