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In an emotional 1,100-word Facebook post published Friday, Sheryl Sandberg reflected on her first year as a widow and single mother. 

The Facebook COO, who lost her husband Dave Goldberg in May 2015, describes a "new and unfamiliar world" of trying to succeed at work without a partner at home, struggling to comfort her grieving children and regularly encountering reminders, like father-daughter dances, that her family will never be the same.

"Before, I did not quite get it. I did not really get how hard it is to succeed at work when you are overwhelmed at home," Sandberg writes in her post. "I did not understand how often I would look at my son’s or daughter’s crying face and not know how to stop the tears. How often situations would come up that Dave and I had never talked about and that I did not know how to handle on my own."

While the post was deeply personal, Sandberg devoted much of it to honoring single mothers and describing the challenges they face. 

"For many single mothers, this is the only world they know," Sandberg writes. "Each and every day they make sacrifices, push through barriers, and nurture beautiful families despite the demands on their time and energy."

Sandberg, who authored the 2013 bestselling book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, even gave credit to critics who said she didn't fully understand or account for the choices single mothers must make when trying to tend to their children and excel at work. She writes: 

In Lean In, I emphasized how critical a loving and supportive partner can be for women both professionally and personally—and how important Dave was to my career and to our children’s development. I still believe this. Some people felt that I did not spend enough time writing about the difficulties women face when they have an unsupportive partner or no partner at all. They were right.

Sandberg, however, didn't stop there. She marshaled statistics to illustrate the tough odds single mothers labor against, including the fact that 35% of them experience food insecurity and 46% of families headed by black and Hispanic single mothers live in poverty. 

"Single moms have been leaning in for a long time." 

Sandberg highlights the story of one San Jose, California, mother who works two jobs and must choose between groceries and paying her cell phone bill. Both are essential, she writes, because without the phone, her son won't be able to call his mother at her second job to say he's arrived home after traveling through their unsafe neighborhood. 

"Single moms have been leaning in for a long time—out of necessity and a desire to provide the best possible opportunities for their children," Sandberg writes. 

She criticizes the American stance on issues like paid parental and sick leave as leaving families to "fend for themselves" and concludes the post with a call to "rethink our public and corporate workforce policies and broaden our understanding of what a family is and looks like." 

Sandberg's strong convictions and empathetic approach will likely quiet some of her critics, particularly if she continues to advocate for all single mothers and their families — and she seems poised to do just that.

"We need to understand that it takes a community to raise children and that so many of our single mothers need and deserve a much more supportive community than we give them," she writes. "We owe it to them and to their children to do better." 

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