endurance

Who is God? — Day 9: One Year Later

June 30, 2025

Our second church service since Mom left us filled me with encouragement once more. A healthy amount of tears dripped from my sore eyes onto my pallid cheeks as we sang of God’s good plans, his faithfulness, and his constance. All of which I believe, and I mean really believe.

However, I mentioned the dissonance between faith and desperate circumstances during Mom’s Celebration of Life, and I want to share more of what exactly that looks like. Suffering forces people to confront their inmost beliefs, and that is completely healthy and can become beautiful. My Mom loved Jesus with her entire being: the cacophony of confusion left in her wake prompts intense introspection and deconstruction.

Our Father in heaven,

your name be honored as holy.

Your kingdom come,

Your will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And do not bring us into temptation,

but deliver us from the evil one.

Matthew 6:9-13, CSB

Now, please understand, I’m not looking for answers and I do not plan to provide any at this time, but I do want to share the questions clamoring in my mind. Thoughts that, perhaps, cloud your mind as well. Maybe sharing my thoughts will help those echoing the same to feel less alone and less afraid, because two thoughts can be true at the same time: one can trust God and be utterly confused and skeptical at the same time. Thus, my questions:

• Good fathers are supposed to protect their family. Why don’t you [God] protect mine?

• If Jesus is the abundant life, how could my mom die? She loved him.

• If he [God] knew what Mom needed, why weren’t her needs met?

I’ve said this so many times — I believe that God can do all things, but I fear what he will allow to happen. This is precisely why: I have now experienced twice how despair and hopelessness kill those whom I love, and those who legitimately love Jesus.

Today, I was incredibly overwhelmed by the generosity and the care from mine and Scott’s small group. They ensured our current needs were met and provided provisions for our future needs. My family has experienced such incredible and support from people being the hands and feet of Jesus, and, because of them, right now my faith remains strong. I wrestle through these complex questions, but it is abundantly clear that we have our daily bread, that God is providing and caring for us, and that we will get through this. I cannot thank our community enough for all they have done. You have eclipsed this horribly dark and tragic time with light and love and I am amazed and humbled at all of this. Thank you.

Tips for Communicating with Someone in Mourning

Acknowledging the situation is better than avoiding the topic altogether. It may be awkward to speak up, but a simple “I see you,” goes a long way 💙

June 30, 2026

God is faithful. His faithful love endures forever.

I’ve grown through the year — not that suffering is meant for one to grow, but that God can bring the blessing of growth and new perspective despite suffering. I reject the notion that anyone “needs” suffering to glean a cosmic understanding, but I acknowledge that committing to healing and renewed life can provide a beautiful glimpse into ethereal understanding.

It is better when people dwell in unity, and I miss the moments when I perceived my mother’s church as a safe place to attend. Maybe that safety was real, maybe it was an illusion. Maybe catastrophic loss changed things for the worse or perhaps it revealed a truth that was always there.

This particular Sunday was one of the most influential in my memory because of the sweet group of friends that continued to meet my family exactly where we were at. Their profound generosity and kindness shines brightly in my otherwise darkened memory: they provided for us for months. They gave sweet notes and gift cards that lasted until I returned back to work. The profound sadness and stress of losing my Momma was/is horrific to bear, but they eased that burden by ensuring that I did not need to worry about returning to work. I did not need to worry about what we would eat or how we would make it — they met those needs in the most incredible ways.

I think some supporters can feel an element of guilt because they are not sure how to support, nor do they feel that their support is enough, but support as detailed above enables more healing than supporters can imagine. People who acknowledge the loss, empathize with a griever’s perspective, and provide physical support for things we grievers can barely think about are earnest. There is nothing to be guilty about here, in fact, it’s something a griever cannot “repay.”

To a supporter, it may seem trivial that they had one honest and empathetic conversation or provided money towards a gift card or a meal while expecting nothing in return, but to a survivor this is the bread of life. This is the kindness that kept us from sinking, this is the provision that kept us eating, this is the support that allowed our mind to focus on healing from the loss instead of focusing on how we are going to afford to survive.

Kindness, compassion, and love change the world.

Kindness, compassion, and love nurture healing.

Above all, God is love.

* * * *

A deluge of questions barraged my mind back then. What was a flood dwindled to a trickle of ever-present drops of questions, much less intense but nevertheless constant. Healing harvests new worldviews, and these are my new perspectives on those old questions:

• Good fathers are supposed to protect their family. Why don’t you [God] protect mine? God is love. Love protects, but love cannot control all outcomes. My perspective on the idea that God “allows” certain outcomes was most challenged by Thomas Jay Oord’s book God Can’t, as I have previously mentioned. I believe that God gave people free will, and that people harm one another. In this specific case, it was my Momma who harmed our family [not God]. Individuals are accountable for their actions because of their free will. God is love, and love protects. If God could protect from this harm, He would.

• If Jesus is the abundant life, how could my mom die? She loved him. How much we love God and/or others does not cure, manage, or heal mental illness. People who love Jesus can be suicidal. People who love Jesus can be delusional. One’s love for God and other people is simply not enough to keep him or her alive. There is no relationship between theological beliefs and mental illness — belief or love of Jesus does not fix mental illness at all. In fact, people can put their entire hope and joy in heaven and begin to loathe this beautiful life they were given. I call this idea Christian Escapism: the belief that one’s life is altogether terrible and it would be better to unite with Christ in one’s idealized imagined heaven. Life is always a gift, life is always a blessing. We were not given the gift of life simply to die.

• If he [God] knew what Mom needed, why weren’t her needs met? Mom’s needs could have been met. She was an educated white woman in America, with more friends and connections that most people have in their lifetime. She had the resources available. She had the support available. She was capable of having her needs, whatever they were, met. Mental illness creates delusions — delusions that choices are limited, that life is altogether horrible, that our pain will always be all-consuming. It isn’t God’s fault that my Mother did not pursue life and healing, and I believe that it is as tragic to God as it is to us.

I do not fear what God allows anymore. I fear what man is capable of, and what man will choose to do with his or her freedom. I fear what people will do with their brokenness and hurt. I fear what people will do with their anger and frustration. Emotions offer so much insight into who we are as individuals: they reveal what is important to us and help us experience the fullness of life in its brevity and elation. They are a gift, but a gift that requires nurturing and tending. I fear what people will do when they do not tend to their emotions and when they do not pursue healing.

Daring to Live — Day 8: One Year Later

June 29, 2025

Funeral preparations cease but a few friends and family members from out of town remain close. Reality slowly creeps in as the whispers of finding a “new normal” lingers just around the corner. In a matter of days, most of the world will return to work while we begin to reorganize our lives.

My Daddy, of course, will have the most significant adjustment for his day-to-day life. Already, he sleeps without my Mom, but he has not had to experience a “typical” day without her. They were partners, they were friends, and they were lovers. I always thought they really would be that couple from The Notebook: I never thought this could happen.

Their relationship was an anchor in my life. They endured and overcame agonizing trauma together again and again and again, and they were the best of friends. Growing up, I always wanted a marriage like theirs. Since getting married, I still wanted a relationship like theirs! My marvelous husband and I watched their love for one another with reverence and admiration. They were such an amazing team. They loved being together and they loved each other well. It’s difficult not to be really angry with my mom when I think of their truly inspirational marriage… and then it’s really, really, really sad.

As my brother Luke reminded, my siblings and I had never known a world without Mom until eight days ago.

Rehabilitation — that’s the word that keeps bustling through my mind. Learning to live without Mom feels like rehabilitating back into normal society: walking, driving, talking, biking, writing, smiling, and so much more, feels so foreign and unnatural. I feel as though I can barely hold a thought or concept in my mind.

Denial persists more than anything right now, a dull ache thumps within me at all times, but most of the time I can’t believe my Mom’s gone and I can’t believe my mom left me feels like a distant thought and not an annihilating reality. My Momma, I still mumble in shock. Moments of mayhem pierce me to the core, preparing me for when the shock wears off and when I’ll have to truly face this menacing reality.

My Mom grounded and anchored my life, creating stability and safety. What now?

Daily Tip for Communicating with Someone in Mourning

I have provided many things not to say — all of which from comments multiple people have made, not just one-off comments as to not single anyone out — but there are so many good things people say as well.

“I’m sorry” feels like such a weak thing to say, but it encompasses a tremendous amount of emotion and care. The short phrase empathizes with the mourners and often creates an understanding between two hurting people.

Future Ways to Help

Small tasks are incredibly helpful — doing a load of laundry, wiping down a counter, calling to set up a dental appointment. Sometimes it’s hard for me to even remember to put a pair of shoes on – it’s invaluable to notice those little things that may be neglected and to help one another out.

We’re a grieving community, and we’ve got this 💙

June 29, 2026

What happens when you lose an anchor in your life?

You simply keep living, limping, breaking every day.

My parents had a beautiful marriage, and facing the world without their partnership in it is strange and unnerving.

I’m not sure if “new normal” ever actually arrives. There is nothing normal about my life and there never will be.

Losses like this aren’t normal. They are tragic. They take people’s breath away. No, I don’t believe “new normal” ever arrives. I think I simply keep on living in the liminal spaces, mind and heart forever fixated on what is and what was.

Two things can be true: I had a mother who loved me, and I had a mother who did the most unloving thing imaginable. She murdered. She killed. Not only herself, but her entire family unit.

My dad lost his wife. My siblings lost our mother. Our family, as we knew it, ceased to exist because she murdered it.

A year later, and most of the shock has worn off.

* * * *

It dawns on me how few people truly have compassion.

Everyone pities the griever, until he or she does something they disagree with.

Everyone claims to support, claims to be there, claims to honor, claims to befriend the griever… until the griever does something they cannot understand.

After that, other people’s feelings somehow become the griever’s fault.

It’s the griever who has to consider them.

It’s the griever who should have anticipated someone else else’s thought.

It’s the griever who should have considered everyone else before they choose to live their life.

We survivors have one responsibility: to survive. For suicide survivors, specifically, the risk of survival far outweighs the likelihood of their own suicide. In my family — with double suicides — we are more likely to kill ourselves than we are to life a full life and die a natural death.

When we choose to keep living, when we begin to find new life and try to start moving on, we are met with an anger. We are met with calloused behaviors if we aren’t moving on fast enough, and simultaneously we are met with silence and judgment when we dare to build a new life.

It’s impossible to be a griever. It’s impossible to be a supporter, too. Everyone gets it wrong. It’s such a sensitive area that both grievers and their supporters often unintentionally hurt each other and lack the grace and compassion to reach to the other side. This perpetuates immense pain and creates situations that grievers and supporters would not have seen coming.

My responsibility — and my father’s and my brother’s responsibility — is to live. My responsibility is to survive. My responsibility is to find new joy in life and to attempt to create a life that’s worth living, because the life that I was dealt by someone else’s choices isn’t worth it. The life my mother handed down to me, full of anguish and pain, isn’t worth living. It’s the life I dare to create and in wake of her decision that makes life worth living.

We are punished for grieving, and then we are punished for living.

We are punished if we do not seek healing, and then we are punished when our healing manifests in new ways that others were not ready to accept.

Supporting survivors requires more courage, more compassion, and more grace than many are even to provide. I do not fault anyone for their limits, but I do not understand when people choose to judge me or my family members for daring to live.

Life should be celebrated. Newness should be celebrated. Daring to live should be celebrated.

Shame and Stigma — Day 7: One Year Later

June 28, 2025

I’ve never appreciated the term “Celebration of Life,” but that’s exactly what we experienced today.

The sacred beauty of funerals presents itself in the friends who show up, the people who tune in, and the unique set of individuals determined to listen and observe the stories of a life once lived.

Today you found out how my mom died: you learned the news we wish we did not need to share. I hate that this is part of Mom’s story, and I hate that it is part of mine.

When I think back over the years, maybe every day we had with my mom since Patrick died was a miracle — maybe it was a miracle before even that. We’ll never know, and that’s severely painful.

I thought this past year was the best year of my life. I thought we were all having so much fun. It’s abysmally burdensome to reconcile, but I do know that multitudes of feelings may commingle — joy with sorrow, anger with relief, frustration with love.

As was said many times today, “May we never be defined by our worst moments.” My Momma was so beautiful, and she loved life, and she endured an unimaginable despair. Both were entirely true.

Thank you for my Momma’s beautiful Celebration of Life. She would have loved it 🩷

Daily Tip for Communicating with Someone in Mourning — Specifically for Suicide Survivors

  1. If a cause of death is not published immediately, it is likely because it is due to a highly sensitive cause of death – such as suicide – It is rude to ask the family “What happened?” prior to the family’s announcement. Curiosity is natural, but respect the family when a cause of death is not mentioned.
  2. Do not ask someone how their loved one took their life. This is also quite rude and this information rarely helps.
  3. Do not ask if “foul play” was involved. Suicide is one of the harshest ways someone can die — a survivor of suicide wishes more than anything else that their loved one did not take their life.
  4. Do not ask if their loved one left a note.

Everyone wants to make sense of a horrible situation, but most questions of this nature are extremely insensitive to suicide survivors.

Future Ways to Help

Listen. Create a safe space for the wounded. A survivor may want to share details such as how their loved one died, this is a privilege and not a right. This sacred information should be honored with respect and reverence.

Reminder for the GoFund Me set up for my Daddy. Our family has an immense amount of trauma to rehabilitate from.

Thank you for loving my Momma 💙

June 28, 2026

I wrote in 2025 that Momma would have loved her celebration of life, but one of her alleged closest friends told us that Mom would have hated it because we evidentially chose the wrong speakers.

I had another family member tell me that it was absolutely horrible that they [who is they??] “forced” us to speak at the funeral. That family member insinuated that it was cruel to make us speak, but really all that the individual did was insult us.

To clarify, we actually did not choose any of the speakers other than my Mom’s boss at that time, but those that did speak did a beautiful job. We offered to allow anyone from Mom’s family to speak and to our food friends the Wallace’s. No one “forced” me and my siblings to speak… we wanted to honor my mom by telling the world about her.

Some have the luxury of not understanding what it’s like to survive suicide and/or traumatic loss — that’s a blessing, but it’s unfortunately a blessing that often causes people to become incredibly insensitive.

* * * *

I had no memory of which date my Mom’s funeral took place, but I suppose it must have been June 28th based on this post.

We held our breath, waiting for the world to discover that Mom took her life.

Suicide stigma prevents many families from sharing with the world the truth of their loved one’s death. When my brother Patrick died, my parents and siblings were instructed that we were not allowed to share with anyone that he committed suicide. This added an unbelievable amount of difficulty, shame, and confusion to an already awful situation.

When you do tell people the cause of death, the first question the majority ask is “Do you think it was murder?” because it’s terribly difficult to accept the betrayal, violence, and incongruity of suicide. This is an incredibly painful question because survivors, more than anything, wish their loved one died in any other way. It’s hard enough to comprehend the suicide, it’s even harder to explain to additional people that “no, it was not murder. It was suicide.”

I once heard that the book of Job was written to demonstrate that when catastrophic loss enters one’s life, a lot of people will come out of the woodwork to tell you their insensitive opinions. The idea makes me laugh, as only we survivors can understand.

* * * *

Shame and stigma is not talking about how she died.

Shame and stigma is blaming the survivors or any other organization connected to the one who died.

Shame and stigma is spreading gossip.

Shame and stigma is asking if it was murder.

Shame and stigma is saying “if [I or you] had done _____ differently, she would have lived.”

Shame and stigma is judging someone who expresses suicidal tendencies by saying he or she is “just saying that for attention.”

Shame and stigma is calling people with mental illness and/or experiencing trauma dramatic.

Shame and stigma is implying the family “should have seen the signs.”

Shame and stigma is treating the family differently because of the suicide.

Shame and stigma is comparing “normal” loss to suicide.

Shame and stigma is saying that prayer and time in God’s word will erase sadness, mental illness, and anxiety.

Shame and stigma is not acknowledging the complexity of suicide.

Shame and stigma is avoiding survivors to protect an organization’s reputation.

Shame and stigma is saying that God “allowed” or “ordained” this.

Shame and stigma is the workplace expecting survivors to return as “normal.”

Shame and stigma is sharing the police report.

Shame and stigma is community speculation about “what really happened.”

Shame and stigma is egotistical responses judging survivors for decisions made within the first days, weeks, and years of the death.

* * * *

Funerals are sacred. They require nearly as much planning as a wedding, in a fraction of the time, without true celebration: death isn’t meant to be rejoiced or celebrated. It is life that is a gift, and death that is cursed.

Funerals are sacred because they’re the closest we are to being between two realms — the realm of earth and life and all we know, and the realm of the unknown dead. Universes collide in this sacred space. A life is recognized, honored, and mourned.

May we commit to compassion towards losses we may never understand. May we forgive and show mercy to those who have harmed [intentionally or unintentionally] us.

Above all, may we love one another well.

May we fight to see another’s perspective, and may we honor how their experiences have affected them.

May we give grace upon grace upon grace, knowing that we too need grace and compassion every day.

The God who Heals — Day 6: One Year Later

June 27, 2025

This surreal week will haunt me for the rest of my life, and yet I’ll remember your kindness vividly in the days to come.

Love permeates everything and its warmth reaches my deep wounds. Tonight, I remember that the New Testament word “Salvation” is the same Greek/Hebrew word for “Healing”. Jehova-Rapha: The God who Heals, written throughout the Old Testament. The God who heals broken hearts and broken minds. The God who binds our wounds and holds us up. El Roi: The God who Sees. The God who sees me — who sees us in our pain.

I live amongst a community of mourners: I know you’re hurting too. I know you loved her, and I know it’s so hard to fathom life without her. She was such a light, such a joy, and so… “sparkly” as my Grandpa, my mom’s dad, described. I love it – she was so sparkly.

Life is so confusing right now. It still doesn’t feel real, until it hits and it hurts excruciatingly. I don’t want it to feel real, I don’t want it to be real. None of us do.

Thank you for being here, for watching, for reading. For holding my hand, playing with my hair, and hugging me. Thank you for loving my mom.

Be well tonight and get some rest 💙 Live loved.

June 27, 2026

The mind works restlessly to comprehend catastrophic loss. In early days and weeks — perhaps even months — after Mom died, I vividly dreamed of her but could not reach her. I knew she was dead during each dream, then I would wake up after a fitful hour or two of sleep and blankly stare into the darkness

Those memories haunt.

We became a community of mourners that day, ever changed by a choice we were powerless control.

Kindness powerfully redeems and heals wounded hearts and minds, but individuals must take ownership of their healing.

Admitting sadness isn’t enough. Admitting depression and anxiety isn’t enough. Admitting isolation isn’t enough. It’s a massive step in the right direction, as many [like my Momma] refuse to admit or acknowledge it to begin with, but saying it aloud isn’t enough to heal someone.

Coming to terms with the reality of one’s own mental fragility can be incredibly painful, vulnerable, dark, and frightening. Yet it is in this darkness that seeds of healing begin to grow when watered with kindness and compassion.

I have been amazed at people’s kindness and cruelty amidst this horror, but I believe that there have been far more kind actions than actions meant to harm. It’s unfortunate that the cruel actions cause such rippling dramas, but it is the compassion that acts as a raft to carry us through.

He is the God who heals and the God who sees, and this healing and seeing often comes from people who peer into our lives to offer compassion.

Thank you for joining me on this lonely and isolating journey, and making me feel less alone 💙

God Can’t — Day 5: One Year Later

June 26, 2025

I’m 27 years old: I thought my family was supposed to be growing at this point in my life, not shrinking, but I’ve lost a brother, a mother, and we can’t get pregnant. We’ve been “trying” for two years now, for all you well-intended people that keep telling us we need to have kids. I don’t like to talk about it, it’s deeply personal. But today? It’s just another wound in a long list of hurts.

It’s hard to trust God in times like these — life can be so cruel, and this feels devastatingly horrific. I see the support of God in the provision for my family, in the food at our table, in our ability to have my remaining living family here, in the friends that hold us, clean for us, and provide for us. The support is palpable, but it’s still hard to trust God. I so often say “I know God can do anything, but I am also vividly aware of what he will allow.” Here we are again, harrowing in what God will allow.

Our table felt so small after Patrick died. Our immediate family of six became a family of five, and now our family of five becomes a family of four. Oh but wait! “They’re always with you!” No, there’re not in the empty chair. It’s still just as painful without them in it. When I was a child, I used to think families of four were so little. Family of four? We had four kids in ours! And it was loud. Now, it’s so quiet. So somber. So mournful. It should be — we loved our Mommy.

It’s so tense and so stressful and so sad. A myriad of emotions waiting to burst from our eyes or escape from our lips.

Daily Tip for Communicating with Someone in Mourning

Just… be so gracious. As you can read, I’m a little snippy today. I need a lot of grace. Don’t be surprised if someone deep in mourning gets a little snippy with you. It’s not you, it’s all we’ve got going on.

I know many of you reading this are likewise deep in mourning — be gracious with yourself and with your family. I’m sorry if those around you haven’t experienced much grief — it’s incredibly hard to fathom a grieving mind if you haven’t experienced a deep personal loss.

Future Ways to Help

Lawncare: My parents’ have a beautiful lawn, with gorgeous trees and plants. A lawncare service would be very helpful. Beyond a lawncare service, weeds grow so fast here — if you drop by, maybe scan the lawn before coming inside and pick some weeds if you are willing and able to.

Gift cards: Right now we have plenty of food, but in a few months, making dinner every night will feel overwhelming.

Any little act of service helps. All those small little normal tasks feel like such monstrous feats when your heart is hurting.

If you can’t physically help but still want to do something, please consider the GoFund Me: https://gofund.me/6617c101

Thank you, immensely, for everyone who has shown up to help, who has given, and who has prayed. Every little bit helps 💙

June 26, 2026

I’ve pretty much given up hope that our family will grow.

I think many people dream of a family to heal the wounds they inherited from their family of origin. I dream of being a mother who watches her children grow old with my husband, and a mother whose children grow up and live full lives — my dream is the bare minimum — I just want everyone to live. But thus far, it isn’t possible for me to create life, let alone sustain it.

* * * *

My mindset about what God “allows” significantly shifted after reading Thomas Jay Oord’s God Can’t. Christians often acknowledge God’s limits (ie: he cannot sin, lie, manipulate, etc), but seldom do many apply this to what God can and cannot allow. Man cannot have free choice if all his actions are predetermined by an outside source.

I believe that God gave life, life in abundance, and life in fullness. What some have done with life is heartbreaking, but I do not blame God for that anymore — I blame people.

People, in need of desperate grace. People, in need of radical compassion. People, in need of healing.

Drowning in Tears — Day 2: One Year Later

June 22, 2025

I answered most of my messages sometime between 3 and 5 AM, messages so sweet and so thoughtful, and then I fell asleep once more and woke drenched in tears.

There’s a difference in seeing support and experiencing it: meal after meal delivered, my home cleaned by sweet friends, people hugging us through tears.

We went to church today, twice actually, and it was so sweet and healing.

My mom devoted herself to her family and to so many — we’re benefiting from all the lives she touched. She loved them well, and now they’re loving us well.

People brought us meals immediately, but to be held by so many filled me with thanksgiving and sorrow.

I’ve always loved alone time, but right now it’s too hard — I took a bath today, thinking it would be relaxing, but I rushed out of it because the quiet was too overwhelming. Did she know I loved her? Was I a bad daughter? Too many thoughts haunt me, and my tears seemed to drown me in the tub.

“My Momma, my Momma, my Momma,” I can’t stop mumbling.

It’s excruciatingly painful. Incommunicably hard.

We feel so supported and we feel so loved. We’re all saturated in tears.

I loved my Momma.

June 22, 2026

Oof, it’s ironic to read this one. That first day back at church was sweet — it was one day of corporate mourning, never spoken of again from the pulpit.

It was nearly one year before I heard from the church’s executive staff — they sent a thoughtful card and flowers last week, which was kind.

I’ve regained my love for solitude and can process the pain in silence now. I remember how scary and painful that first bath was. It is really impossible to communicate the sheer horror of surviving suicide. I have never experienced a more poignant fear than the fear of living through suicide.

When I was young, long before death arrived my doorstep. I used to ponder the verse about how God records our tears in a bottle (Psalm 56:8). I imagine that I had one of the largest bottles imaginable that was a naïve thought, there are many with pain beyond my own imagination, but back then I couldn’t imagine anyone was more pain than me.

My mother did not take kindly to my tears, so I had to hide them from her. Perhaps one’s inability to allow another’s crying and natural sadness is one of the first signs that someone is mentally unwell. I had to find places to shelter my sadness. I often called them my “crying corners.” if you went to middle school or high school with me, he probably remembered one of my crying corners at home, I would sit in the corner of my tiny closet and put the clothes over my face to muffle my tears.

I have a walk-in closet now, and though I do not need to hide my tears from my husband, my closet remains my favorite place to the to allow my emotions freely flow. 

Scott began this puzzle on June 22, 2025, and now it’s finished and hanging in our living room. These simple things mark the passage of time and the new lives she’s forced us to build without her.

I will cry for these things forever, and my tears are proof that she existed. They are proof of her love, and proof of my love for her.

Ground Zero — Day 1: One Year Later

June 21, 2025

Ground zero.

I’m always amazed how much pain people can endure when faced with suffering.


I woke to notes of encouragement, sorrow, and prayer. My breathing fails, my eyes swarm with tears, and my body heaves with the weight of my mind.

“My Momma. My Momma. My Momma. I loved my Momma,” I chant in a voice choked by emotions and tears — words barely able to escape my mind and reach the outside world.

My Momma is gone, and she’s not coming back. My Daddy, my Daddy. My Daddy☹️ I can barely move. I don’t know how to function, “My Momma. My Momma. My Momma,” I mumble.

How do I reconcile this? It doesn’t make any sense. I know I’ll be angry with God for that sometime later, but today I’m just trying to survive. All I want to do is be with my Daddy and my brothers.

I can’t walk 20 steps without sobbing: “My momma, my Momma, my Momma.”

All I want is my Momma.

One Year Later

June 21, 2026

Photographs poured in from across the globe, beginning the day after she died. It was loud back then, with the whole world feeling ripples from the explosion that was the epicenter of my family’s universe.

It’s quiet today and still: we live among the ashes.

Interestingly, I did not become angry with God like I had predicted one year ago. That surprises me — I was very angry with him after Patrick died — but I suppose I outgrew that perspective.

This time, anger at God was not a battle I needed to wrestle through. I haven’t written much about God, but I’ve talked about him with many.

I’ve come to view God as far more compassionate and loving, and remembered Christ as he was known — as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. God as the savior who heals, God as the creator who gave abundant life, Christ who came to demonstrate a greater way to live on earth.

This life — my beautiful, tragical, emotional, unforgettable life — is such a gift. My family is everything, my relationships are everything, my experiences are everything.

I sat by one of my nieces this week and allowed a tender tear to grace my cheek, simply in awe of the fact that this precious little life loves me simply for being in her life. It’s an overwhelming amount of love. The joy and the beauty of simply being together, surrounded by my sweet family, thinking how wonderful it is to love them and to be loved by them.

I cannot imagine walking out of my nieces and nephews lives like my mother, aunt, and grandparents walked out of ours. They’re withholding and missing out on so much love.

That’s not God’s fault, it’s theirs.

We each have choices of whether to harm one another or to love one another, and unhealthy thought patterns ultimately lead to death in one sense or another. We are free to make our choices, for better or for worse.

Now, I’ve walked miles without sobbing “My momma, my Momma, my Momma.” I knew it was possible back then, but it was incomprehensible at that time.

It is astounding how much pain people can endure; it’s unbelievable how much pain I have endured. People often try to comfort or maybe explain [I think??] by saying “She [Momma] was in so much pain,” but her pain didn’t end: it transferred to we who survive, giving us a trauma she did not have to live through.

Love is eternal, and so is loss.

Perhaps there is a grand reunion in the afterlife, but we living will carry Momma’s loss until we too take our final breath.

Her love endures. Her loss endures. In some ways, she endures too, her blood coursing through our veins.

Her loss is irreconcilable, and it isn’t meant to be. Mommas aren’t supposed to leave their babies. People aren’t supposed to choose their deaths.

Life is hard, but our endurance should be celebrated. Our lives should be celebrated.

One year later, glimpses of life flutter from ground zero. All that is gray and dark does not last forever.

Week 51

Fifty one.

My mom turned fifty one 21 days before she killed herself…. How sick, to murder oneself. Ugh. It’s so… abrasive.

Fifty one — we called it “Fifty Fun.” I coined the term, but Mom thought Scott made it up. Scott & I laughed about that at the time. She just adored Scott; he reminded him a lot of herself, with his optimism and lighthearted demeanor. Now these similarities scare me about Scott sometimes… Isn’t that sad?

“She was supposed to be ‘fifty fun’ not ‘ fifty done,’”I’ve often repeated to myself this year.

Grief rips apart one’s sense of time and space. It’s been almost a year since my mom died, but it feels like it’s been a decade. Others think the year went by fast. It’s seemed like an eternity. Pieces of me feel like I never had a Mom — I feel so far from her, it’s like she was part of someone else’s life. It couldn’t possibly been my life.

The sun and the moon and the tides testify to time’s reality, but it’s simultaneously a construct. A way to measure our days, with seasons to mark the harvests and the plentiful and the droughts.

Time moves quickly when we enjoy our lives, slowly when we’re bored, and halts when we’re suffering.

Suffering refines and illuminates what matters, while healing ensures one concludes with the right perspective.

It seems as though nothing matters when one’s suffering. For example — from my skewed and insecure perspective — nothing I’ve done matters.

It didn’t matter that I loved Patrick.

It didn’t matter that I loved my Momma.

It doesn’t matter that I love my grandparents.

It doesn’t matter that I loved my former pastors.

My kindness and my love, in the end, didn’t matter to any of them. They’re still gone. They’re still dead, in one way or another.

The letters I wrote them didn’t matter. My forgiveness doesn’t matter. My kindness doesn’t matter.

I can do all the “right” things and remain punished by others’ decisions. In a sense, nothing I do matters.

Nothing I did matters.

They chose this, they did this, and nothing I did deserved that.

So… nothing I do matters.

* * * *

And yet… it all matters. Maybe it didn’t matter to them, maybe it did in some ways, but ultimately it didn’t.

Healing reminds me that it all mattered — it all matters.

I’ve experienced how much kindness matters. Again and again and again, people extend kindness and grace and support, and others’ actions matters. If others’ kindness and cruelty matter, mine does too.

Many have said that my words matter. Sometimes it’s difficult to see how one’s actions matter when he or she experiences so much pain because of another’s actions.

Sorrow rips apart time and space, too. How hard it is, then, to see one’s importance and brilliance in a world clouded with such potent pains.

* * * *

She was beautiful, she was real, she was my Momma.

She loved me, but that didn’t matter either. It did and it didn’t.

Week 49.1

The worst part about our estrangement from Mom’s church is all the innocent bystanders… walking in and embracing all the wonderful people we used to engage with every Sunday. All the people who loved my mom, all people — especially people that aren’t on the executive staff there, who tried their best to help facilitate healing and not injuring — that we’ve lost access to because of a few people’s poor and cruel decisions. None of this was their fault. None of this was my fault, either. We didn’t ask for this.

There have been an abundant people from Mom’s church, staff members and congregants, who have been amazing and who have done their best in this terrible situation to reach out and extend their love. I’ve gotten messages and letters and all sorts of sweet notes.

I spent the last nine months (about when we found out about the sinister plans) fearing for my life and the lives of my family members because of my grandparents and the church’s leadership. Fearing that anytime I connect with someone from that church — will they tell the executive staff something about my life? Will the staff tell my grandparents? Will someone use this connection to hurt me and my family? Because they want to hurt me and my family.

When safety becomes a major concern it relationships, it’s best to leave those relationships, and that hurts most for the people who didn’t want to hurt us. For the people who didn’t know about any of this, all because of the few people who did know. All because of the few people who did hurt, and they hurt intentionally. Calculatedly. Coldly. Cruelly.

For a long time, I kept the majority and the specifics quiet because I didn’t want things to get worse. I don’t know what these people are capable of, because what they have done astonishes me.

The worst part about all of it is missing so many of you, and missing them too. Because you don’t stop loving people just because they hurt you. I really, really loved these people.

But love protects. It doesn’t intentionally inflict harm.

Love shelters. Love seeks the best of its beloved. Love heals.

Love doesn’t do what they did.

So many relationships were lost because of my grandparents and my aunt. They wanted that, and my Mom’s executive staff [likely unintentionally] partnered with them to accomplish it.

I didn’t stop going to Mom’s church because it was too painful — I felt I had to stop going for the safety of me and my family, and that is horrific and tragic.

* * * *

I miss many of you. I miss your smiles, I miss your hugs, I miss the way you would have brought healing.

I know you miss my Mom, too. I know you miss us. I haven’t forgotten you, and I cherish the ways you long to show up for us.

I’m sorry for the hurt this has caused you, too. I would have liked to mourn with you in tears and in embraces, instead of through messages and comments.

* * * *

My grandparents and aunt attempted to ruin my life and the lives of my family members. They won’t. I’m not hiding anymore, and I’m not continuing to cover up what has been done.

I’m not afraid of them.

I love them, and I do miss my grandparents. I miss having an extended family that I thought loved me, but perhaps they were simply glad to see their genetics reflect back at them in my smiles.

* * * *

I’m not bitter. I am sorrowful. I am disappointed. I am perplexed.

I work on forgiving them everyday, like my brother Sawyer wrote, “radical forgiveness.”

Forgiveness always comes with a cost: it surrenders justice and vengeance in pursuit of mercy. It says “I’m okay with letting this go,” while deeply hurting. It’s wrestling with injustice, while watching the offender carry on as if all is well. It’s the mental weight of knowing that an offense will never be made right, accepting that, and choosing to live a full life inspire of it.

I forgive my grandparents, aunt, and church leadership, but I will not entrust my heart and my life to them. She loved them and spent her life protecting their flaws and serving them.* I won’t make that same mistake.

*Note: I do not blame my grandparents, aunt, or her church’s leadership for my mother’s suicide. If you are being abused and mistreated, seek help. The crisis like is 988.

Also, it’s really not necessary or helpful to call the church enraged about anything I have posted. They’ll reach out to me to complain that I wrote anything and that you reached out to them. Just forgive them with me. They didn’t know what to do, they weren’t prepared for any of this.

To the church leadership — Sorry if you get a bunch of calls or some reaction out of all of this. Not my intention. But, this really happened. I’m not going to pretend it didn’t to protect your egos.

Week 48

There are some types of sorrow that busyness passivates, while types of pain that cause tears to trickle regardless of how many tasks engage one’s mind.

For the most part, I can function relatively normally. Sure, my mind may be cloudy most of the time, but the average bystander seldom notices the storm in my mind.

In fact, somehow, I still have a reputation for being “happy” at work. No matter what I share, no matter what I do, somehow this cult of positivity shapes me into what it wants to see. Others want me to be happy, so they say that I am.

In some ways they are correct maybe — I still find happiness in many things — but I’ve never considered myself a very happy person.

Melancholy — that’s the word I’ve resonated most with for my whole life. If you know me well, or if you listen to my words and read my writings, you know this to be true. I’m comfortable in the sadness. It’s a part of me, it’s a part of me that has loved more deeply than most can fathom.

I used to think my melancholy demeanor was bad. My mother certainly thought it was. She used to pray that I wouldn’t be so melancholy. She rejected that piece of me, so I tried my best to hide it from her for years.

As I enter into conversation after conversation, it’s dawned on me how much insight melancholy provides. It’s become a favorite part of myself — a piece of myself I can finally freely accept.

I think the concept of melancholy scares people. Our society is so afraid of pain, but it’s this pain-avoidance that results in horrific atrocities. People fear their sorrow, so turn it into anger instead. Unchecked anger produces strife, dissonance, and murderous behavior. Avoided sorrow creates depression, mental illness, and unavoidable pain.

We’re all a little sad. We’re all a little melancholy. Denying that reality creates a disillusionment with our souls, and all disillusionments must break. Sometimes we break our own delusions, sometimes they break us instead.