A Thread of Quiet Strength
It was late evening when I stumbled across a letter tucked in the pages of an old book I borrowed from my grandmother. The paper was yellowed, the ink faded, but the word ah, those words — still pulsed with life.
“Dear Marguerite,” it began. And just like that, I was pulled into a story from another time, another world. It wasn’t a love letter, though it was filled with emotion. It wasn’t a call for help, though there was urgency in its tone.
It was a letter from a woman I’d never met, but who felt so familiar. She wrote of long hours at work in a factory, of standing in for her husband when he left for war, and of raising three children on her own. She spoke about decisions she never thought she’d have to make — should she spend what little money she had on medicine for her youngest, or save it for food in case the days ahead were even harder?
And yet, amidst all the struggle, there was no sense of defeat. In fact, it was the opposite.
This woman — who lived in a world where women weren’t supposed to be much more than caretakers and homemakers — was managing her home, running a small business, and making decisions that impacted her family and community. She wasn’t waiting for permission to contribute. She was doing it, quietly but powerfully.
