PART ONE
Mourning is a fickle process sometimes.
Mourning isn’t just for funerals or physical death. It can happen anytime something—or someone—isn’t what we expected. This is especially true with people: children, friends, spouses, jobs, and yes, even parents.
When it’s a parent who isn’t the person you thought or hoped they’d be, the mourning often begins long before their death. It can feel like a lifetime of grief—facing a reality that never matches your expectations. Even as an adult, the desire for a “parent” never really goes away. Certain words and actions are simply expected, because no matter how old you are, the hierarchy doesn’t change: they are the parent, and you are the child.
Over time—hopefully with age and wisdom—you start to see things differently. If you’re walking with Jesus and learning to live like Him, you begin to look at your parent’s life through another lens. You notice patterns they carried from their own childhood. You see the generational curses that were never broken. You’re not excusing their behavior—we’re each responsible for our own actions—but you start to understand how they became who they are.
Did they have good role models? Were they loved by their parents? Did they love their spouse? Or was it the opposite—did they lose a parent at a young age, leaving an unfillable hole? Was there divorce? Abandonment? Constant bickering and negativity?
When I look at my own parent’s life, I see pieces of all of this—and I only know a fraction of the story. My parent lost his dad very young. His mother went through multiple divorces. His maternal grandmother stepped in to raise him—literally in the house next door to his mother. I can’t imagine how awkward those family gatherings must have been.
He was married at nineteen, became a father almost immediately, and had very little money—like many young families. Within a decade, there were four children. Both parents had lost their own fathers young. Both had mothers who either couldn’t or wouldn’t raise them. Both were brought up by their grandmothers.
With that kind of history, the deck was stacked against them as positive parental role models. Could they have changed? Absolutely. People do, but it’s hard. It takes intentionality—and, as we say in the South—a whole lot of Jesus.
Now, as an adult “child,” I can understand why my parent is the way he is. But it’s still hard. As a mother, there are things I could never do—or say—to my children, or to anyone. We are each responsible for how we treat others, and if we claim to love Jesus, that standard is even higher.
So how do I reconcile the words said to me, the things done to me, the hurt I’ve seen toward my siblings, my children, my nieces, and nephews? I can’t. I will never be able to say it’s okay or that it makes sense.
Yes, there were good moments. But there was also a lifetime of trying to be loved—and constantly feeling like I never measured up. Always striving and performing so I could be loved.
Understanding why doesn’t erase the hurt. It doesn’t fix the broken moments or undo the years of walking on eggshells. But it does change how I carry it. There’s more to this story—a choice I’ll have to make about how to respond in the final chapters of my parent’s life. And it’s a choice that will test everything I believe about love, grace, and what it really means to follow Jesus.