#strentgh

A poem I wrote for a dear friend that I’ve redone.

If I know one thing; it’s my worth.

Hope you'll like it

applebrooklyn©

I recently finished watching the Turkish series Vatanim Sensin (or Wounded Love). I found very interesting the representation of female characters in this show, especially how they chose to represent a variety of strong women, all strong in different ways. Whether they were on the "good side" or the "bad side", eventually they all showed strength and power: Yildiz, Hilal, Havva, Veronica, Eftelya, Hasibe, Efsun, Emine, Kara Fatma, Seher, Lucy Adams, Halide Edip and many others. However, now I'd like to focus on the character of Azize. Azize won my heart. She always showed such courage and strength of character that made me admire her ever more so as the show went on. She raised three children on her own and took care of her old mother-in-law while working to earn the money to survive. She never asked for permission to do what she believed to be right and no one could stand in her way or make her change her mind when she was already set on something. Her high sense of morals pushed her to help whoever she could even at the risk of her own safety. She endured an awful lot of pain, but that never broke her. She always found a way to rise again from the ashes and prove the world that "women can do everything if they want to". Nevertheless, I would minimize too much the complexity of her character if I reduced everything to a matter of women empowerment: she was a woman deeply in love with her husband, loyal and protective towards her country and her friends, fierce when it came to protecting her children. She never took into consideration coming to compromises with her morality and always firmly believed in the necessity of showing kindness and understanding. In her confrontations with men of power, she never backed off, never lost ground. She showed confidence and pride, which often led those hostile characters to form a sort of reluctant admiration and respect toward her (General Vasili, General Filipos, Charles Hamilton...). The confidence and inspiration her character gave me personally are unbelievable, maybe because I saw a bit of my mother in her, or maybe it was just that I yearn to become as strong and independent. The lesson she taught me is that women with strong personalities and principles may not always have an easy life, but in the end, however it turns out, they will regret nothing because they always stayed true to themselves. I don't know who needs to read this but we are all strong and strength shows in different ways, just stay true to yourself and to your conscience and you'll never have to regret anything.

I’ve literally seen a patch of them get mistakenly run over by a lawnmower, and they just piped right back up next spring! It’s not about how many times you fall down, but how many times you get back up!