I Grow Strong Again

Inner strength signifies all that we have been and all that we have yet to become.

Ben and me after our wedding ceremony - June 30, 2007

“I’d like to wear my kilt on our wedding day,” Ben mentioned over the phone. A casual comment, but it startled me. I’d envisioned a formal, traditional, and extravagant ceremony since childhood: a giant dress with a twelve-foot train, a cascading bouquet of flowers, tuxedos for the guys, a harpist or maybe string quartet to add depth. Clearly, my romanticized idyll did not include the wishes of my future spouse.

Once I agreed to the kilt, the entire affair grew into a Scottish-themed ceremony. I was vaguely aware of my maternal Scottish roots, but Ben’s heritage was direct, as his paternal grandparents moved to the southwestern United States from Scotland.¹ From that instant, everything fit into the motif: tartan ribbons woven into the bridesmaid’s flowers and my bouquet, an ice sculpture of the Lion Rampant (Scotland’s unofficial flag), a bagpiper, Highland dancers at the reception.

But the invitations took more time to materialize. I hired an old friend from elementary school to design them, and she used a Celtic font that fit well with the thematic pattern we’d (I’d) selected. I can’t recall how the Clan MacEwen motto and crest became a point of discussion for inclusion in the invitations, or even who suggested it (Ben?), but it was brilliant and did not take much cajoling for my consent.

Scottish Clan MacEwen crest, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

“What does Rev-ir-es-co mean?” I asked Ben over the phone. Most of our wedding planning happened long distance, since we were separated by fifteen hundred miles. We met on a dating website before smartphones and apps existed, in the days when online dating did not garner easy approval. Most of my friends were convinced I was engaged to a highly skilled serial killer. (This is not hyperbole: My closest friend at the time, Rachel, literally asked me after she saw my engagement ring, “But what if he is a serial killer?”)

Ben paused, then answered thoughtfully. “I think it means ‘I grow strong again,’ but let me ask my parents just to be sure I got the translation right.”

At the time, over sixteen years ago now, the symbolism of a tree stump with a sapling sprouting from its detritus meant little more than a distinction to set my wedding apart from other blander nuptial celebrations. To be clear, attending any wedding delights me, and my friends have thrown some incredible ones. Even so, the idea of standing out held (still holds) importance to me.

When I mulled over a potential book title for my memoir last year, nothing came to mind for months. I own several cheap spiral notebooks that I purchase in bulk during back-to-school sales for thirty cents apiece, one of which I use to brainstorm any- and everything that pops into my head regarding said memoir.

Then, one day, on a walk to the park of my childhood, the title came to me: I Grow Strong Again. I imagined Clan MacEwen’s family crest accompanying these four potent words, and I knew it was symbolic of my journey: the slow and steady growth over decades of time that is swiftly hacked to ground level. I felt annihilated, without breath, and I had no evidence to demonstrate that I even built anything of myself, my life.

Everything is gone. Well, nearly everything. In the MacEwen crest, a tiny scion of oak sprouts at the base of the old tree trunk, now decomposing. The decomposition was what my life felt like after I gave birth to Auggie in 2020: as if nothing remained of me, except fragments of who I once was. But the regrowth, the nascent twig with two green leaves, is the evidence that, yes, I grow strong again.

And so can you. It’s why I chose it for the title of my Substack - because this powerful imagery signifies all that we have been and all that we have yet to become. In order for us to emerge as stronger humans, we have to be destroyed in a way. It’s a horrifying idea, but a true one: how does one become strong, if endurance is never tested, if nothing is ever lost or broken?

A few weeks ago, I attempted cursory research at the history of Clan MacEwen’s motto: why did they choose Reviresco and its accompanying image? Other Scottish clans also use Reviresco but with different symbols that hold value to their particular shared experience. My findings were disappointing, mainly because MacEwen is considered a broken clan, one that is attached to other prominent names, such as Campbell and MacDougall.

In the late 1500s, many of the MacEwens grew feral without proper leadership and guidance, but some became poets, or bards, who landed patronage under nationally recognized clans.² Still, why the image of a tree stump? Frustrated, I abandoned my search for a week or so, until I stumbled across this verse from the Book of Isaiah (11:1-3) in the Old Testament of the Bible:

A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom. The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, a spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and of fear of the Lord…

Could this be its origin, to which the oak stump and sapling are attributed? I can’t say for sure, but Reviresco has many translations, all of which evoke a stirring in my soul. There is a vital component to rebuilding one’s life after a floundering marriage, deteriorating physical and mental health, and the crushing weight of managing a household of five children, including one with a complex rare disease (stories for other essays).

Here’s what matters: that we each choose to pick up the shattered and splintered parts of ourselves and, believing without evidence that we can and we will, grow strong again:

I grow strong again.

I flourish again.

I become green again.

I am renewed.

I am revived.

I live again.

To come back stronger after a setback.

1. Ben told me that his paternal grandmother was born in Edinburgh and his paternal grandfather was from Colorado but of Scottish and Irish ancestry. His grandpa was in the 8th Army Air Corps and stationed in Scotland, which is how he met Ben’s grandma.

2. Ben gave me more info about this: Many members of Clan MacEwen turned to crime as cattle rustlers and highwaymen after they officially disbanded. There seemed to be a split to either crime for survival or attaching themselves to other clans