It is a comforting lie and a cracked one.

My mother was not weak; she had buried a husband and raised a child and kept a household through years that would have broken many people.

She was not stupid; she was a sharp, capable woman.

What she was, was trusting, and decent, and inclined to believe the best of a man who told her he loved her, and those are not flaws.

They are the qualities that make someone worth loving.