But I knew, watching her, that my job was not to celebrate the hero.

My job was to rescue the casualty — to see past the impressive, capable, grown-up surface to the exhausted child underneath, and to give that child back the years she had spent protecting the rest of us.

The bravery was real, and I would honor it.

But I would not make the mistake the whole room was making, of mistaking a child’s forced strength for a thing to applaud.

It was a thing to grieve, and then to gently, patiently, undo.