Muscle through

[El Greco - Retrato de senhora]

«"You know what would help?" she said. "The sound of that voice that's disappeared. The sound of the excepcional man I loved. I think I could take all this if he were here. But I can't without him. I never saw him weaken once in his life - then came the cancer and it crushed him. I'm not Gerald. He would just marshal all his forces and do it - marshal all his everything and do whatever it was that had to be done. But I can't. I can't take the pain anymore. It overrides everything. I think sometimes that I can't go on another hour. I tell myself to ignore it. I tell myself it doesn't matter. I tell myself 'Don't engage it. It's a specter. It's an annoyance, it's nothing more than that. Don't accord it power. Don't cooperate with it. Don't take the bait. Don't respond. Muscle through. Barrel through. Either you're in charge or it's in charge - the choice is yours!' I repeat this to myself a million times a day, as though I'm Gerald speaking, and suddenly it's so awful I have to lie down on the floor in the middle of the supermarket and all the words are meaningless. Oh, I'm sorry, truly, I abhor tears."
"We all do," he told her, "but we cry anyway."»

Philip Roth, Everyman