One of the hardest parts of everything we’ve gone through has been the heartbreak and disappointment my children have experienced along the way.
When I look back over the last five years, I see so many moments my husband and I missed—sometimes because we weren’t physically present, and sometimes because we simply weren’t emotionally present. We were surviving. We were putting out fires. We were carrying burdens that felt impossible to set down.
The chaos, drama, and pain I was experiencing inevitably spilled over into the lives of my children, who were simply trying to be kids, teenagers, and young adults. They were navigating their own emotions and challenges while living in the shadow of ours.
My son’s struggles became my full-time job. If I wasn’t somewhere trying to get him help, I was at home researching ways to get him help. And when I wasn’t doing either of those things, I was mentally and emotionally exhausted from the weight of it all.
I can’t help but feel that I wasn’t the best version of myself for my children during those years.
The truth is, I know I wasn’t.
I’ve spent countless hours beating myself up over what they experienced and what they will eventually have to work through because of it. I hate that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t fully protect them from the reality of what was happening in our home.
There is no way any of them could walk away from those years untouched.
None of them really talk about it, even when I try to open the door for conversation. That’s heartbreaking in its own way because I know there is pain there. Pain from what each of them experienced individually, and pain from what we experienced as a family.
I am still working through my own grief—the grief of losing my son and the life I had imagined with him. I still carry PTSD from the trauma of those years, something I feel the effects of almost every day.
I have no doubt my children carry grief too.
They lost their brother.
They lost the life they knew before everything fell apart.
And they will continue to feel the ripple effects of this chapter in ways I may never fully understand.
As a parent, that’s the last thing you want for your children.
All I can do is pray for healing for each of them. I can continue to create space for conversation, continue to remind them that they don’t have to carry their burdens alone, and continue to respect where they are in their own journeys.
That’s all I can do.
But there is one thing I know.
My children are resilient.
They have endured more than most people realize, and somehow they continue to move forward. They’ve learned to cope, to adapt, and to keep going even when life has been unfair.
My hope is that even though I wasn’t perfect through any of this—and I’m still not—I have shown them what it looks like to keep moving forward when life hurts.
To get up each day and begin again.
To search for gratitude, even when you have to dig deep to find it.
To trust that hard seasons don’t last forever.
We live in a broken world, and suffering touches every life in one way or another. But we never walk through it alone.
Even in the darkest valleys, God remains present.
And sometimes simply taking the next step forward is an act of faith.
“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
— Psalm 23:4
Unpolished Truth 