Smile, Though My Heart is Aching

There’s a kind of strength no one talks about. The kind that lives in quiet corners, that shows up with tired eyes and trembling hands. The kind that puts one foot in front of the other when your soul feels like it's cracking under the weight. That’s the strength I’ve had to find every day living beside my husband and his battle with PNES.

Psychogenic Non-Epileptic Seizures — a name that sounds clinical, detached, but the reality is anything but. It’s sudden. It’s terrifying. It steals moments and hours and sometimes days. It steals peace. It steals the version of life we once dreamed about when everything felt full of hope and certainty. But the cruelest part is how invisible it can be to the world. People don’t see the war we fight behind closed doors. They don’t understand the toll it takes—on his body, on his spirit, on us. On me.

There are days when my heart is truly aching. And still, I smile.

Not because everything is okay, but because I need to keep going. Because I need to be a lighthouse for him, even when I’m drowning too. Smile though my heart is aching… smile even though it’s breaking. That line feels like it was written for caregivers, for partners like me—those of us who carry the pain with no one really seeing it.

Sometimes I wonder if people think I’m fine because I look like I’m fine. But what they don’t see is how tightly I hold it all together. The late nights when I watch him sleep, praying he makes it through the night without a seizure. The mornings when he can barely speak and I have to coax his world back into focus. The appointments, the therapy, the paperwork, the fear, the endless explaining to those who still think this disorder isn’t real. All the while, I put on a brave face. I show up to work. I pay the bills. I smile.

If I smile through my fear and sorrow… smile and maybe tomorrow I’ll see the sun come shining through. I hold onto that. That maybe, just maybe, the sun will shine again. That he’ll laugh without a shadow behind his eyes. That we’ll go for a walk and not have to cut it short. That I won’t have to be on edge every time someone raises their voice or a loud noise erupts nearby. That one day, we’ll find peace that lasts more than a few hours at a time.

I don’t fake my smiles. They’re real in their own way. They are defiance. They are hope wearing armor. They are love that won’t give up even when everything hurts.

Light up my face with gladness… hide every trace of sadness… although a tear may be ever so near. That’s me. Every day. Smiling while walking a battlefield no one else can see. Smiling because my love is stronger than my fear. Smiling because even when I’m exhausted, even when I feel invisible, I still believe in better days.

And on the days I can’t smile? I let the tears come. I sit in the ache. I let my soul stretch out and grieve the things we’ve lost. But I always come back to the smile. Not for anyone else—but for me. Because I’ve learned that joy and sorrow can live in the same heart. That strength isn’t always loud. That sometimes, the most courageous thing we can do is simply keep showing up.

With love. With hope.

And yes—with a smile.