Bravery?

The other day I was told that someone admired my bravery. This struck me as extremely odd. I know what they meant. I know how they meant it, and I appreciated the compliment. But somewhere, deep in the recesses of my brain, this word kept bouncing around. At first, I thought it was my normal denial of a compliment, but then I realized that it bothered me because it didn't fit into my view of myself OR my understanding of the word. My view of myself, while I believe it to be an honest portrayal, apparently is flawed and will take years to alter. It is not currently in my ability to truly accept a compliment or believe that I am worthy of one. But the latter thought, is what I am choosing to evaluate. My understanding of bravery is that it belongs to someone who is courageous. Some one who sees an impossible task and refuses to see it as impossible. One who charges in knowing the dangers, but not fearing them. That is not me. I see the dangers, and they scare the hell out of me. They stop me from taking a step forward. I did not choose this path to go down. Never would I have said, I am going into this darkness and I shall not fear. I do not want this, I don't want life to be like this. I want my son to be here and I want all of the things that were supposed to happen. I do not feel brave or strong, only that I continue to exist. I should find comfort in knowing that people view me in this way, and that it helps them. But I feel like I am falsely representing myself to accept that I am brave or strong.
I always wondered how people could handle tragedies like this. I thought they possessed something extra and some of them do. But I think that most people, myself included, just continue to breathe. We continue to wake up in the morning and go to work and do life stuff, not always knowing why, never understanding, but we just do. Because we are the "other people". The people that stuff like this happens to, the people that "normal" people care about but never want to join. And it is all surreal.