For The Women Who Are Never Allowed to Fall Apart: A Love Letter

There are women walking among us—maybe in your mirror—who are quietly holding up entire families without applause.

She is the one planning summer schedules while fielding hospice updates. She’s texting her siblings about floral arrangements between school drop-offs. She’s ordering takeout for her kids while confirming burial plots for her parents.

Yet somehow, she still finds the strength to show up looking whole.

There’s a lot of quiet talk these days about women being stretched between generations. MadameNoire even posed the question years ago: “Am I selfish for not wanting to pay my parents’ bills?” That piece spoke to a growing tension; how many women of the “Sandwich Generation” are now expected to support not only their children, but their parents too—emotionally, financially and spiritually. Women do it while still showing up to work. Still smiling through FaceTime. Still expected to pour from a cup that rarely gets refilled.

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Recently, I lost my grandfather, my mother’s father, and my only grandpa. His passing was not sudden; it was a slow, quiet decline after battling lung cancer and a brain tumor. But when death arrives, it still lands like a thunderclap.

Our family was supposed to be preparing for a reunion. Instead, we gathered for a homegoing celebration of life. The loss fell on the same day as my baby sister’s 18th birthday party—joy and grief colliding in the same 24 hours.

This was the first time I had ever witnessed someone in my immediate family transition. I watched my mother lead the way alongside her brothers through the planning, mourning and gathering—while still holding space for everyone else. She juggled hotel logistics, family tensions, her immediate household, funeral arrangements, her own upcoming surgery, and the unspoken weight of being the strong one. Watching her navigate that showed me just how much unacknowledged labor so many women carry.

So this isn’t just a column; it’s a love letter.

To the women who are doing it all.

To the ones making decisions no one trained them for.

To those who are mourning and still managing to show up, to smile, to survive.

Here’s a moment just for you.

To you.

To all the women who are balancing beauty and burden, often in the same breath. This isn’t a how-to. This is a soft place to land. A reminder that you’re not invisible. And that what you’re doing matters—even when no one says so out loud.

1. Just Because You Carry It Well Doesn’t Mean It Isn’t Heavy

There’s a grace to your survival, but let’s not pretend it’s easy.

I watched my mother coordinate logistics across states, fielding calls from funeral homes and hotel reservations, all while trying to find a quiet moment to process the loss of her father. Even grief had to be penciled in.

According to Pew Research, more than one in 5 U.S. adults are now providing unpaid caregiving support to a loved one, most of them women.

You’ve been juggling responsibilities that were never meant to fall into your hands this early—or all at once. But here you are: making it work. Folding laundry with swollen eyes; smiling through FaceTimes; scheduling your own sadness for later.