For the Women Who Are Holding Everyone: A Love Letter

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Depression, sad and thinking with woman in bedroom of home for breakup or unhappy memory. Anxiety, burnout and mental health with miserable, moody or thoughtful African person on bed in apartment — Source: Yuri_Arcurs

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.

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.

I'm so tired concept. — Source: Yuliya Taba

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.

2. You’re Allowed to Mourn and Mother at the Same Time

Woman waking up with neck pain — Source: andreswd

You don’t have to “keep it together” for everyone.

You’re allowed to grieve in waves, even as you pack lunches or braid hair. In fact, the, National Alliance for Caregiving found that 36% of female caregivers report experiencing high emotional stress, but rarely speak about it.

When my grandfather passed, it was the same day as my baby sister’s 18th birthday party. We had balloons in one room, silence in the next. That’s how grief works—it doesn’t ask permission or wait for good timing.

You don’t have to be a fixed point in everyone else’s storm. It’s okay to be weathered, too.

3. No One Teaches You How to Say Goodbye While Still Showing Up

There’s no handbook for this part—when roles reverse and you become the one managing bills, checking vitals, and making the final calls.

Somewhere along the way, you started parenting the people who once parented you. And no one prepared you for how tender that transition would be.

It’s worth noting that nearly 60% of caregivers also work outside the home (AARP & NAC Report, 2020), meaning your grief often has to clock in and keep working.

4. Grace Doesn’t Always Look Peaceful—Sometimes It Looks Like Survival

When my grandpa Reuben passed on June 6, my family was thrown into motion. What was supposed to be a family reunion weekend turned into a homegoing.

I watched my mother move mountains. She managed hotel rooms for out-of-town relatives, handled personality clashes, and honored the life of her father—all while looking after her children, comforting her mother, and preparing for her own upcoming surgery.

This was our first time watching someone transition from a memory care facility to the funeral home. Choosing photos. Picking out clothes. Hosting a repass. Sorting out estates. Holding space for everyone else’s grief.

Watching my mom do all of this with strength and sorrow in equal measure changed something in me. It was witnessing womanhood in its rawest form—unpolished, exhausted and still somehow beautiful.

5. Rest Isn’t a Reward—It’s a Right

melancholic mixed race female wearing headphones listening to sad moving while holding smartphone lying on leather sofa in modern lounge — Source: Cameron Prins

You don’t have to earn your peace.

My mother has an upcoming hip replacement surgery, but even that had to be postponed mentally while she took care of business. Women like her push rest further and further down the list—because someone always needs them first.

You deserve rest simply because you exist, not because you hit some invisible benchmark of productivity or perfection. A nap, a walk, a cry, a pause…these are not luxuries. They’re lifelines.

Even the CDC acknowledges that chronic stress from caregiving can lead to anxiety, depression, and long-term health problems, especially for women of color who carry both cultural expectations and generational duty.

6. You’re Not Falling Behind—You’re Rising Through It

Comparison is a thief, and social media doesn’t show grief in real time.

Don’t measure your journey against anyone else’s. You’re living a layered life—a story that doesn’t fit neatly into captions or career timelines. That doesn’t make it any less valid. It makes it deeply human.

7. Love Doesn’t Leave, It Just Looks Different

Even when the physical presence is gone, love lingers in the everyday.

In the way you show up. In the recipes you keep. In the songs that bring tears to your eyes out of nowhere. You are the continuation of their love, and you’re teaching it forward.

8. You’re the Reason So Many Don’t Break

Young adult couple with relationship difficulties in bedroom — Source: JulPo

Even if no one says it, you’ve been the steady one.

The peacemaker. The planner. The presence. The prayer.

Family isn’t perfect, but we show up. Through the chaos of personalities and grief, my mother stood at the center, making sure everything held. If she hadn’t, I don’t know who would’ve.

Black women in particular provide more hours of unpaid care on average than any other racial or ethnic group (National Center on Caregiving, 2022), and are often the unspoken backbone of their families.

Yes, it’s unfair. But it’s also your power. You carry generations in your spirit, and still somehow make space to dream for yourself.

If we’re being honest, Black women have never just been caretakers of their own families—we’ve been caretakers of America. From nursing babies that weren’t ours, to organizing communities, holding down churches, rewriting school budgets and raising generations, we’ve held this country up through every storm it’s created.

Tyler Perry’s latest Netflix film Straw, tapped into that emotional exhaustion—that moment where the final ask, no matter how small, becomes too much. It was a dramatized version, yes, but also a mirror. Because even in real life, Black women are expected to hold the weight of everyone else’s needs, and then feel guilty for finally saying, “enough.”

But here’s the truth: You don’t owe anyone your breaking point to prove your love. You are not required to martyr yourself for every room you walk into. Holding space for others is noble—but holding space for yourself is sacred, too.

Dear Mamas, This Is Dedicated To You

Thinking, sad and elderly black woman in home with depression, nostalgia and reflection in living room. Sofa, retirement and senior person with thoughtful, memory and mourning expression in house — Source: Jacob Wackerhausen

If no one else told you this today, you are doing so much. You are doing beautifully. And while there may be no blueprint for balancing love, loss and legacy, just know that you’re not alone in the in-between. We see you. We thank you.

We’re holding space for your softness, too.

In loving memory of my Grandpa Reuben—thank you for the love you gave us, and the strength you left behind.