It’s been four months and two days since my mom died.

Some days I can say that sentence and almost convince myself I understand what it means. Other days, it still feels like I’m talking about something that happened to someone else. Like eventually someone’s going to correct me. Like my phone will ring, her name will light up the screen, and this entire terrible misunderstanding will finally be over.

This morning, grief found me right in the middle of trying to get my kids ready for school.

My youngest is six, and he cried over getting ready. It was one of those mornings where every single thing felt hard. Getting dressed was hard. Eating breakfast was hard. Picking snacks for the day was hard. I was already carrying the mental list of everything I needed to get done today, trying to keep the morning moving while also trying not to completely lose my shit in the process.

Then my daddy stopped by to bring me mom’s little dog and ended up helping me get the boys out the door. Somewhere in the middle of all of it, I broke. There was something about my daddy stepping into a place my mom used to fill that made her absence impossible to ignore. He was helping me through the morning, but all I could feel was the person who was missing from it.

Not the quiet, graceful kind of crying where one delicate tear rolls down your cheek and you somehow still look pretty. I mean ugly crying. The kind that comes from somewhere so deep inside you that it feels like your body’s been holding it there without your permission. The kind of crying that leaves you unable to explain what happened because, technically, nothing happened.

Except everything did.

My mom used to talk the kids through mornings like this. When they were tired, emotional, stubborn, overwhelmed, or just absolutely determined to turn getting dressed into a full blown crisis, she knew how to reach them. She had a way of stepping into the chaos and helping everyone find their way through it.

And every morning after I dropped the kids off at school, I called her.

Every single morning.

It was just part of the rhythm of my life. Get the kids dressed. Get everyone out the door. Survive the drop off line. Call Mom.

Sometimes we talked about important things. Sometimes we talked about absolutely nothing. Sometimes I vented about the morning. Sometimes she made me laugh. Sometimes I had somewhere else to be and only had a few minutes, but I still called because she was the person woven into all the ordinary parts of my day.

I think that might be one of the cruelest parts of grief. You don’t just lose someone in the big moments. You lose them in the school morning meltdowns. You lose them in the quiet drive home. You lose them every time something happens and your first thought is, I can’t wait to tell Mom.

Dolly Parton died yesterday.

My mom absolutely adored her.

As soon as I heard, I thought about Mom. I could almost hear the conversation we would’ve had. I could hear what she would’ve said and all the commentary that would’ve come with it. I wanted to call her. I wanted to talk about Dolly with her. I wanted to hear her stories and grieve someone she loved right alongside her.

Instead, I was grieving both of them without her.

There are losses inside the loss that no one prepares you for. Every time something happens that I would’ve told her, I lose her again. Every time one of my children needs the exact kind of comfort she knew how to give, I lose her again. Every time I instinctively reach for my phone before remembering there’s no number I can call that’ll take me where I want to go, I lose her all over again.

People say grief comes in waves, but sometimes it doesn’t feel like a wave. Sometimes it feels like a freight train barreling through an otherwise ordinary morning. There’s no warning. There’s no time to brace yourself. One minute you’re looking for a child’s missing shoe, and the next you’re standing in the wreckage of a life that still doesn’t make sense without your mother in it.

And the most unfair part is that everything else keeps moving.

The kids still have to get to school. Emails still need to be answered. Work still needs to get done. People still need things from me. There are appointments, responsibilities, deadlines, dishes, laundry, and a thousand other things waiting for me on the other side of an ache I can’t even begin to explain.

There’s no bereavement leave from motherhood. There’s no pause button when you’re the person everyone else depends on. I still have all the things to do, even when grief takes the breath straight out of my lungs.

So I cried.

I let myself ugly cry because I miss my mom. I miss the way she helped me mother my children. I miss the way she made hard mornings feel manageable. I miss calling her after drop off. I miss telling her things that wouldn’t matter to anyone else in quite the same way. I miss being my mama’s daughter in the present tense.

Four months and two days sounds like enough time for reality to have settled in, but it hasn’t. Sometimes I still catch myself believing she’s just somewhere I can’t reach right now. Maybe that’s because love doesn’t understand death. Love keeps reaching for someone even after the world tells us they’re gone.

I know my faith tells me death isn’t the end. I believe my mom’s with God. I believe she’s whole. I believe there’ll come a day when separation no longer exists and every tear is wiped away.

But faith doesn’t mean this doesn’t hurt.

Faith doesn’t make me stop wanting my mom.

It just gives my grief somewhere to go when I can’t carry it anymore.

This morning, I gave it to God in tears because I didn’t have the words. I gave Him the school morning, the phone call I couldn’t make, the conversation about Dolly I’ll never get to have, and every ordinary moment that feels unbearably empty without her.

Then I wiped my face and kept going.

Not because I was done grieving. Not because I suddenly felt strong. Not because four months should’ve been long enough.

I kept going because that’s what grief asks of us. To carry love forward through a world that kept moving when ours stopped. To get the kids out the door. To do the next thing. To trust God with the parts of us that still can’t understand any of it.

And maybe tomorrow morning, after I drop the kids off, I’ll still reach for my phone.

Maybe some part of me always will.

Forever finding Faith Through the Fire.

I have a theory, and I fully expect someone to disagree with me.

I think we’ve completely misunderstood confidence.

We treat confidence like it’s something you’re either born with or you’re not. Like one day you’ll magically wake up feeling qualified to start the business, apply for the job, speak up in the meeting or chase whatever dream has been sitting in the back of your mind. I am thirty-four years old and if that’s how it works, I definitely missed that memo. Most of my life feels like one long series of, “Jesus take the wheel” moments.

People tell me all the time that I seem confident, and I always laugh a little because what they don’t hear is the conversation happening in my head about thirty seconds before I walk into a meeting... Don’t trip. Say something intelligent. Please don’t accidentally call someone by the wrong name. Smile. Keep fixing your face. You know what you’re talking about. Wait, DO you know what you’re talking about? Too late now! Then I open the door and walk into the room like I own the place. Maybe confidence isn’t something you’re born with after all. Maybe it’s just learning how to have a full-blown identity crisis in the parking lot and still walk in like you belong there.

I’ve started to wonder if that’s all confidence really is. Not waking up fearless but refusing to let fear make your decisions. I don’t remember feeling confident the first time I estimated a custom home. I don’t remember feeling confident walking into networking events where I didn’t know anyone. I certainly didn’t feel confident starting a business. I just kept showing up and trusting I’d figure out the parts I didn’t know along the way.

Here’s the funny part. Half the people I thought had everything figured out eventually admitted they were winging it too. That was both comforting and mildly concerning. Which also raises an important question… Where exactly IS the adultier adult?

For the longest time, I thought successful people had some secret I hadn’t been let in on. Then I started working alongside them and realized they were asking questions too. They were learning as they went. They didn’t have all the answers. They’d just stopped waiting until they felt ready before making the next decision. That’s when it finally clicked that I didn’t have to feel ready either.

I’ve heard people criticize the phrase, “Fake it till you make it,” because they think it’s dishonest. I don’t. I think there’s a big difference between pretending you know something you don’t and refusing to let insecurity make your decisions. If I walked into a client’s home pretending to be an engineer, we’d have a serious problem. But walking into that same meeting believing I can figure out whatever I don’t already know? That’s not dishonesty. That’s growth.

If I’m being completely transparent, almost everything I’ve accomplished started long before I felt qualified. I didn’t feel ready to run a business. I didn’t feel ready to be responsible for someone else’s dream home. I didn’t feel ready to coordinate wildfire relief. I definitely don’t feel ready to start a nonprofit, and yet here I am, making phone calls and brainstorming ideas anyway. Not because I’m unusually confident, but because I’ve finally accepted that readiness isn’t a prerequisite for obedience.

I think that’s where my faith really comes into play.

God has never seemed particularly interested in confidence, nor has He seemed interested in waiting until people feel qualified. He qualifies the called. 1Moses didn’t think he could speak. 2 Gideon thought he was the wrong choice. 3 Jeremiah believed he was too young. 4 Peter took the first step before he knew if he was even capable of taking the second. If God only used people who felt completely confident, the Bible would be a very short book.

Maybe confidence isn’t something we’re supposed to find before we begin. Maybe it’s something we discover because we began.

Looking back, every uncomfortable conversation, every awkward networking event, every presentation I overprepared for, every project I questioned whether I could actually pull off, became another reminder that I could survive being uncomfortable. That’s what confidence has become for me. I certainly wasn’t born with it. It’s not believing I’ll never fail. It’s trusting that if I do, I’ll learn something, laugh about it eventually, and probably have another story to tell… or another Lotus Letter to write.

So yes, I’m still talking myself through things before I walk into the room. I still ask, God… are we sure? I still overthink emails. I still occasionally leave a meeting and replay every sentence I said, convinced I sounded ridiculous.

But I keep walking into the room anyway.

And if that’s “faking it,” then maybe we’ve misunderstood the phrase all along. Maybe it was never about pretending to be someone that you’re not. Maybe it’s just having enough faith to believe God knew what He was doing when He opened the door… Even if you’re still wondering why He picked you.

Faith Through the Fire.

The Aspen Acres Fire ignited on June 29, 2026, in southern Colorado and rapidly became one of the largest wildfires in the state’s history. Fueled by dry conditions, steep terrain, and challenging weather, the fire burned tens of thousands of acres, forcing widespread evacuations across Pueblo, Custer, Fremont, and Huerfano counties. Hundreds of firefighters and support personnel from across the country worked around the clock to protect lives, homes, infrastructure, and natural resources as the incident continued to evolve.

This letter is not intended to document every operational update or statistic. Instead, it is a personal account of what it was like to witness a community respond with extraordinary generosity, resilience, and hope in the midst of disaster.

Prologue:

This letter has been sitting open on my computer for more than a week and a half.

I’ve written it between client meetings, answering late-night Facebook messages, donation runs, helping my dad, and the thousand other moments that have somehow continued existing while the Aspen Acres Fire has changed all of ours.

This is also not my typical Lotus Letter. It is longer. Much longer.

Normally my letters begin with a thought, wander through a story, and eventually find their way back home, or unravel completely and I call it a day. This one became something different. Somewhere along the way it turned into a journal, a thank you, a love letter to a community, and my attempt to make sense of one of the most extraordinary periods of my life.

Every photograph throughout this letter was taken by my children’s dad, wildland firefighter Andrew Borata, while he was deployed on the Aspen Acres Fire. These images offer a perspective most of us will never see firsthand. Thank you, Andrew, for serving, for allowing me to share them, and for giving our children an example of courage and selfless service.

Part One. When Life Doesn’t Pause for Grief:

I was going to make a video the night I sat down to write this.

Truthfully, I may still if time ever allows it. There are too many people I want to thank, and I know hearing someone’s voice carries something that words sometimes don’t. But writing has always been where I go first. It’s where I untangle the things I can’t quite explain out loud. Somewhere between the first paragraph and the last, I usually discover I wasn’t writing because I had something to say. I was writing because I needed to understand what had just happened.

The last three months have felt like an entire lifetime.

Just a few weeks ago, I was planning my mom’s celebration of life. I learned very quickly that there is no handbook for saying goodbye to your mother. You spend days trying to summarize a life that shaped yours, knowing you’ll never find enough words. Between writing a eulogy, discussing flower arrangements with the florist, coordinating the service, making decisions no daughter ever wants to make, life just... kept going.

At the same time, life refused to slow down.

My relatively new interior design company, Grace by Design, CO., still had clients depending on me. Builders still needed answers. Design meetings were still on the calendar. Selections still had deadlines. My clients trusted me with some of the biggest investments of their lives, and grief didn’t change the fact that they deserved my best. I never once resented that. In fact, I’m beyond grateful for it. There was something healing about still creating beautiful spaces while my own world felt like it had been rearranged overnight. Purpose has a funny way of carrying you when your emotions don’t think they can take another step.

My dad needed me too. That part happened more subtly.

Dad has always been more than capable, but my mom was the one he leaned on. She quietly carried so much of life, and when she was gone, those pieces didn’t disappear. Somewhere along the way, I found myself becoming the “adulty adult” of the family, which is pretty ironic considering I’m the youngest of four kids. Nobody asked me to step in. I just did. There were phone calls to make, details to remember, decisions to think through, and somewhere in the middle of my own grief, I found myself wanting to make sure my dad never had to wonder if he was carrying it alone. That’s what family does. We don’t usually announce it. We just start picking up whatever is lying on the ground.

Somewhere in the middle of that chaos, life kept unfolding.

Summer break started, and suddenly my house was full again. It was loud in all the best ways. There were baseball and cowboy hats scattered across the kitchen counter, snack wrappers that somehow never quite made it to the trash, shoes abandoned in places that made absolutely no sense, and the constant soundtrack of three kids reminding me that childhood doesn’t stop just because adulthood gets heavy. Looking back, I think they were keeping me afloat without ever realizing it. Their laughter had a way of interrupting my grief just long enough to remind me that life was still happening around us, and somehow that felt like one of God’s quietest mercies.

I remember thinking maybe this is just what grief looks like. Not moving on, because I don’t think we ever really do that. Just... learning to carry it differently. Learning that you can miss someone with every part of you while still laughing at something your kids said five minutes later. That you can cry in the morning and smile by dinner. It felt strange at first, almost like I was doing something wrong, until I realized maybe that’s exactly how God designed us. Not to choose between joy and sorrow, but to somehow hold both at the same time.

Part Two. The Morning the Smoke Rose:

When June 29th arrived, I don’t think anyone in our communities woke up that morning believing the next several weeks would become part of our story.

I woke up early for work, made my coffee, opened Facebook, and saw the first notifications that the Aspen Acres Fire had started. At first, it seemed like just another Colorado wildfire. We are in the middle of fire season, and approximately twelve fires were already burning across the state that day. Still, for whatever reason, I kept checking on Aspen Acres. Every time I refreshed my phone, it seemed to have doubled in size. New evacuation areas. More smoke. More uncertainty. By dinnertime, it had grown to roughly 22,000 acres, and I remember thinking, this isn’t going away anytime soon.

Around the same time, the father of my children, Andrew, called to let me know there was a good chance he’d be deploying to the fire. As a wildland firefighter, that’s simply a part of his job. When the phone rings, you pivot. Grandparents jump in, schedules change, summer plans get rewritten, and we all understand Dad has to go fight fire and the rest of us figure it out as we go. It’s never ideal, but it’s a part of life we’ve learned to navigate.

By the end of the day, Andrew called to tell me he was deploying within the hour. It was evident this was no longer another wildfire we would be watching and praying over from a distance. Families were being urgently evacuated, evacuation zones were expanding, and firefighters were mobilizing from across the state. Updates were coming in faster than I could keep track of them, and I could not shake the feeling that this was not going to be a good situation.

At one point I asked Andrew if he had to go. Technically... no. They probably could’ve sent someone else. Did that stop him from bugging his fire chief to let him go? Also no. That’s just who he is. I informed him he was personally responsible for at least half of my gray hairs because apparently volunteering to run toward a wildfire is a perfectly reasonable career decision. The anxious mom in me has never been nearly as convinced.

We laughed, because sometimes laughter is the only thing that keeps fear from getting the last word. Then I told him to be safe for the sake of our children, asked him to keep me updated whenever he could, and reminded him that I wasn’t exactly thrilled with his decision to fight fires for a part-time living. He promised he would be safe, reminded me he’d trained for this, and I knew he had.

Just days earlier, the wildland firefighting community had lost Emily Barker, Nick Hutcherson, and Sydney Watson while battling the Knowles Fire on the Colorado-Utah border. Their names were still fresh on all of our hearts. I wasn’t questioning his training or his ability. I know exactly how capable he is. I was thinking about our kids. Every firefighter is somebody’s son or daughter. Somebody’s mom or dad. Somebody’s best friend. Somebody’s whole world. Knowing everything I knew didn’t make me question his choice to go. It just made me pray a little harder and hold my breath a little longer.

Part Three. I’ve Never Been Good at Feeling Helpless:

The morning of June 30 began much like the one before it. I made my coffee, walked into my office, answered a few emails, and did what I think a lot of Southern Colorado was doing before the day had really begun. I checked the fire updates.

Then I went to work.

My clients still needed me, deadlines still existed, and my life had not stopped because a wildfire had started. Throughout the day, whenever I had a minute, I checked to see how the fire was progressing. Every update seemed to bring another evacuation order, another road closure, and another family suddenly wondering what tomorrow would look like.

Then I opened my inbox to realize my aunt had messaged me. She and her family had been evacuated.

That one hit differently. I love and care about my aunt, and knowing she and her family were suddenly among those waiting to learn what the fire would do next made everything feel more personal. It is one thing to watch evacuation zones expand across a screen. It is another when someone you love is inside one of them. With every update, I found myself wondering how many more families were about to have their lives turned upside down.

I finished my workday because that’s what needed to be done.

Later that evening, I finally heard from the kids’ dad. The updates weren’t reassuring. The fire was growing quickly. Crews were settling in for what everyone knew was going to be a long fight. I remember staring at my phone with this overwhelming feeling of helplessness.

I’ve never been very good at feeling helpless.

I couldn’t fight the fire. I am certainly not trained for all of that. There are men and women far more qualified than I am doing that work, and my respect for them continues to grow. But I’ve always believed God gives each of us different gifts. I’ve also come to the conclusion that mine certainly don’t involve running toward literal walls of flames. Mine have always been managing. Managing people. Managing projects. Managing chaos. Communicating. Solving problems. Looking at a situation and instinctively trying to figure out how to make it a little less overwhelming for everyone involved.

So I made a Facebook event.

That was the entire plan, if you can even call it one. There was no committee, no nonprofit, no five-year vision, and absolutely no strategic plan. I was completely winging it. I thought maybe I could collect enough donations to fill the back of my SUV once, possibly twice, help a few families who suddenly found themselves with nothing, and get firefighters some of the items they needed. I was not trying to build anything. I was simply answering one question at a time and figuring out each next step only after it landed directly in front of me.

I had absolutely no idea what God was about to do.

Part Four. The Facebook Post:

Within ten minutes of creating the event, I had over 100 notifications. Messages started pouring in from people asking where they could bring donations, what firefighters needed, where evacuees were staying, whether anyone had room for horses, whether families needed wheelchairs, formula, dog food, clothing, fencing, hay, trailers, or simply another set of hands.

Every time I answered one question, three more appeared, but nobody seemed discouraged by that. If anything, it only strengthened everyone’s resolve.

What has happened since then has never belonged to one person. It has turned into the most inspiring community effort I have ever been involved in.

One of the greatest privileges of this experience has been meeting so many other people who woke up that same morning with exactly the same thought I had.

How can we help?

Some were organizing donation drives. Others were coordinating livestock. Empty barns opened the doors. Businesses became collection sites. Nonprofits mobilized. Ranchers offered pasture. Volunteers showed up with trailers, trucks, donations, and muscles. People I’d never met before were already solving problems I hadn’t even discovered yet. There wasn’t one leader directing everyone. There were numerous people independently deciding that sitting on the sidelines wasn’t an option, and somewhere along the way all of those individual efforts began weaving together into something far bigger than any one of us could have accomplished alone.

Part Five. Black Socks and a Moving Command Post:

I have always believed there is room for laughter in the middle of hard things. It does not mean the situation is not serious or that the fear and devastation are somehow less real. Sometimes humor is simply what gives us enough room to breathe before we face the next difficult thing.

That became especially apparent when Andrew called and asked if I could make a mad dash to Walmart.

Their deployment was being extended, and he needed socks, underwear, and a few other basic necessities he had not packed enough of for a longer assignment.

Apparently, after several days on the fire line without showers, everyone smelled absolutely terrible.

This was not particularly shocking information. A group of men working around wildfire smoke, ash, dirt, and hundred-degree heat without access to a normal shower was unlikely to smell like fresh linen and good decisions.

So off to Walmart I went.

Evidently, Walmart now keeps men’s socks and underwear locked behind glass… So I found myself standing beside the exceedingly patient woman assigned to unlock it while talking to Andrew on the phone. I asked if he was absolutely certain he wanted briefs instead of thongs and why, exactly, the socks had to be black instead of white. (For the record, I was joking about the thongs. The black socks were apparently a very serious and nonnegotiable matter.)

The woman helping me stared at me like I had completely lost my mind.

In her defense, she had just unlocked a glass case for a lady conducting what sounded like a deeply serious, and very weird, emergency consultation about socks and underwear. Once I explained that the men were deployed on the Aspen Acres Fire and their assignment had been extended, her entire expression changed. Suddenly, the absurd conversation made sense. Or at least as much sense as an urgent debate about black socks and thongs possibly could.

I thanked the sweet employee, and we all laughed about how utterly ridiculous the entire interaction had been. I gathered the socks, underwear, and other requested items, then added candy and several things they probably did not actually need but that I had decided they were getting anyway.

Meanwhile, Andrew’s incredibly patient chief was waiting for me in the parking lot because apparently my inability to walk into a store and purchase only the things on the list was now holding up a wildfire supply run. I eventually made it back outside and handed everything over so he could deliver it to the crew.

That is the strange reality of helping during a disaster. Some needs are enormous and complicated. Others require an immensely patient Walmart employee, a locked glass case, and an urgent supply run for clean underwear.

The next time Andrew called, the conversation was very different.

He told me their command post was supposed to be relocated the next day. The original location had become too dangerous and increasingly difficult to access as the fire advanced and evacuation orders expanded. The lightheartedness of our earlier conversation disappeared immediately. I had been watching evacuation zones expand across a screen, but hearing that the people coordinating the response were also being forced to move made the fire’s progression feel far more real.

That update was unnerving. The command post had been selected to support the response, and now even that location was no longer workable. If the fire could force the entire operation to relocate, there was no pretending anyone knew what the next several hours, days, or even weeks would bring.

Part Six. Living in the Shadow of the Fire:

Somewhere along the way, I realized the fire was not only changing the landscape. It was changing me too.

As I was writing this, my phone buzzed with another notification about yet another vegetation fire.

A few weeks ago, I probably would have glanced at it, hoped crews got it under control quickly, and returned to whatever I was doing. Now my stomach drops before I even open the alert. The other afternoon, I was driving to the donation distribution barn in Pueblo with my entire SUV loaded down with donations when the vehicle in front of me suddenly erupted into flames. I called dispatch, waited until help was in route, and then continued on my way while seriously considering whether I should start keeping a fire extinguisher in my SUV. A month ago, that would have sounded excessive. Today, it feels perfectly reasonable.

Maybe that is what living through wildfire does.

I lived through the Black Forest Fire in 2013, and I do not think you ever completely leave an experience like that behind. It changes the way you experience summer, especially the excessively dry ones. You notice the wind differently. You smell smoke before anyone else seems to. You pay attention to emergency notifications in a way you never did before, and somewhere along the way, you develop the habit of looking toward the horizon without even realizing you are doing it.

There were several days when ash from the Aspen Acres Fire drifted nearly seventy miles into Black Forest and fell from the sky like rain. If you have never lived through a catastrophic wildfire, it is difficult to explain what that does to you. If you have, you know exactly what I mean. Watching ash settle onto an already parched forest floor surrounded by thousands of dry pine trees has a way of waking up parts of your nervous system you hoped would stay asleep.

At one point, Andrew told me to be prepared for the worst-case scenario.

So, I checked our go bags. I made sure our important documents were where they needed to be. I talked with my family and neighbors to make sure everyone had a plan, just in case we found ourselves doing this again.

Then I prayed we would not.

While those of us outside the evacuation zones watched the horizon, thousands of people were living the nightmare we were preparing for. By early July 3rd, the fire had already surpassed 66,000 acres with zero percent containment, all of Colorado City was placed under mandatory evacuation and the fire grew over 7,000 acres in just twenty-four hours. As the days passed, the fire continued to grow, communities were displaced, highways closed, water systems were affected, and the number of destroyed structures climbed with every new assessment. Behind every statistic was a family trying to understand what had happened to the life they knew. Some were waiting to learn whether their homes were still standing. Others already knew they were not.

My aunt and her family were among those waiting. Days after evacuating their home, they were forced to evacuate again from the place where they had sought safety. For a time, we believed their house had burned. By the grace of God, it now appears to still be standing, but they remain displaced. Utilities must be restored, the area must be cleared for safe reentry, and the home will need to be inspected so any structural, smoke, soot, ash, or water damage can be properly assessed and remediated before they know when it will truly be safe to return. Their house may have survived the flames, but that doesn’t mean they can simply go home.

That is one of the realities the numbers don’t explain. A home can still be standing while the people who live there remain displaced, uncertain, and unable to return to the life they had before the fire. As the situation became more complicated and the needs continued to change, access to current information became almost as important as the donations themselves.

The Facebook event I created grew so quickly that Meta removed my ability to edit it. What began as a simple donation drive had outgrown the format almost immediately, so I created a public group on Facebook instead. Within days, hundreds of people had joined the group, and far more were following, sharing, and engaging with the information being posted.

Other grassroots organizers had created their own pages, groups, donation drives, and relief efforts, and we began collaborating almost immediately. We shared one another’s updates, passed along verified information, compared needs, connected resources, and communicated daily about where help was already available and where gaps still existed. None of us wanted to duplicate efforts or allow valuable resources to go unused. The goal was never to compete for attention or recognition. It was to help one another serve the affected communities as effectively as possible.

Through that collaboration, my Aspen Acres Fire Relief Drive group became one small place where frightened, generous, overwhelmed, and determined people could find one another.

Unfortunately, not every update brought a resource, an answer, or good news. Some carried painful reminders of the risks being taken beyond the Aspen Acres Fire.

On July 12, firefighting pilot Nicholas Dale lost his life when his aircraft crashed into Silver Jack Reservoir while he was battling the Gold Mountain Fire in southwestern Colorado. Another family was forever changed. Another crew was left grieving one of its own. The loss was felt throughout Colorado’s firefighting community. Behind every incident report and headline are men and women who willingly accept extraordinary risks so complete strangers have a chance to go home.

That truth has stayed with me throughout all of this. Every firefighter on the line belongs to someone. Every evacuated house is somebody’s home. Every animal moved to safety is loved by someone who was terrified they might have to leave it behind. Every donation handed over represents a person saying, in whatever way they can, I may not be able to stop the fire, but I refuse to do nothing.

Part Seven. What I Was Really Watching:

One of the things I have caught myself laughing about over the past couple of weeks is how many people have asked me how I am doing all of this.

The truth is, I am not doing anything all that remarkable. I am continuing to live my life while saying yes to what is directly in front of me. I am running on less sleep and considerably more caffeine. Grace by Design, CO., is still running because my clients deserve the same care they did before June 29, and because I genuinely love what I do. I am still helping my dad because life did not stop asking things of either of us after my mom passed away. My children still need their mom. Relief efforts are still underway. Families still need help. Volunteers are still showing up. My inbox is still completely out of control.

Every night, I tell myself I am only going to answer a few more messages before bed. Every night, I look at the clock and wonder how it got so late. Somewhere in all of that, I usually realize I forgot to eat dinner, laugh at myself, grab whatever is easiest, and go right back to answering messages because I know there is another person on the other side of one of them who needs an answer.

There is nothing glamorous about most of it. It is spreadsheets, phone calls, loading and unloading vehicles, asking the same questions repeatedly, connecting people who have something with people who need it, correcting outdated information, following up, apologizing when a message gets buried, and trying again the next morning.

But somewhere between every small and large task of the last several days and weeks, I realized I was not actually spending my spare time coordinating donations.

I was watching people find one another and helping the process along.

When I made that Facebook event on June 30, I thought I was asking people to help fill the back of my SUV. That is honestly all I expected. I was not trying to build an organization, become the face of anything, or take ownership of work that has always belonged to an entire community. I simply could not sit at home knowing families, firefighters, and animals needed help and convince myself that doing nothing was acceptable.

God, obviously, had much bigger plans than the back of my SUV.

I have watched complete strangers become neighbors overnight. I have watched people give things away without expecting anything in return. I have watched volunteers stand in hundred-degree heat to help people they will probably never meet again. I have watched businesses offer their buildings, ranchers open their land, families fill shopping carts, and children spend hours drawing thank-you cards for firefighters whose names they will likely never know.

My own children have loaded donations, sorted supplies, carried bags, made cards, and adjusted to a mom whose phone seems to buzz constantly. They have watched our home become a temporary collection point and our schedule change by the hour. They have asked questions about the fire, the families, and the firefighters, and then looked for whatever small thing they could do next.

I truly hope they remember that.

Not the exhaustion or the chaos, and certainly not how often their mother forgot what day it was. I hope they remember that when something terrible happened, people came running. I hope they remember that generosity was not an abstract idea. It looked like laundry detergent, bottled water, dog food, work gloves, towels, trailers, pastures, phone calls, and handwritten thank you notes. I hope they remember that they were not too young to help and that kindness did not have to be enormous to matter.

There is something beautiful about discovering that most people want to be useful. Sometimes they simply need someone to tell them where their particular piece fits. One person has a truck. Another has storage space. Someone else has time. Another person has money but no idea what to purchase. One person knows a displaced family. Another knows a business willing to serve as a collection site. Alone, those things may seem small. Connected, they become a relief effort.

That is what I have been privileged to witness.

Not one person saving a community, but thousands of people carrying one another a few feet at a time.

Part Eight. The Conversations Between the Chaos:

Most of my conversations since the fire began have had a specific purpose. There is a problem, a need, a question, or a solution. Someone needs a place to bring donations. Someone has animals to move. Someone wants to volunteer. Someone needs information I may or may not have yet. The conversations are important, but they are usually moving toward an answer as quickly as possible.

Then, every once in a while, one wanders.

It may begin with the fire, but somewhere along the way, curiosity about the situation becomes curiosity about the person on the other end. A conversation that started with a question about donations turns into someone telling me why this particular fire matters so deeply to them. A volunteer call becomes a story about the fire they survived years ago. Someone offering a trailer tells me about the animals they once had to evacuate. Someone helping a displaced family admits they know what it feels like to lose everything and have no idea where to begin again. The practical question gets answered, but the conversation keeps going because neither person is quite ready to hang up.

I have spoken with firefighters, ranchers, business owners, nonprofit leaders, government officials, volunteers, evacuees, people who have lost homes, and people who simply woke up one morning and decided they could not sit comfortably while someone else was suffering. Every person arrived here by a different road. Some were driven by their own experiences with wildfire. Some felt called by God. Some had a particular skill or resource they knew could be useful. Others could not explain it beyond saying, “I just knew I needed to help.” I understand that answer more than most.

Some of these conversations have been heavy. People have trusted me with their fear, grief, frustration, exhaustion, and stories they probably never expected to tell a complete stranger. We have talked about homes, family, loss, faith, rebuilding, and the strange guilt that sometimes comes with being safe while someone else is not. There have been moments when the only thing I could offer was a listening ear and reassurance that whatever they were feeling made sense. Not every problem has an immediate solution. Sometimes what a person needs most is to know someone heard them.

Other conversations have given me room to breathe. One became so intellectual that I remembered there are still people in the world with vast vocabularies who are not afraid to use them. Another turned into laughter because someone was paying attention closely enough to catch the sarcasm and sent it right back. I have been challenged without feeling as though someone was trying to defeat me. There are still people who understand that disagreement is not disrespect and that changing your mind can be a sign of wisdom rather than weakness. I have wandered into conversations about community, responsibility, faith, grief, construction, government, human nature, and whatever unexpected rabbit trail found me that day. Some of the funniest and most meaningful conversations have been with volunteers and evacuees who, despite everything they were carrying, still found room to laugh.

I did not realize how long it had been since I had a conversation that was not trying to accomplish something. Lately, nearly every conversation has involved a deadline, a decision, a problem, or something that needed to be handled. It has been unexpectedly refreshing to talk with people who were not rushing toward the next answer, but were genuinely interested in where the conversation might go.

I expected most of these conversations to stay focused on the fire. Donations, evacuations, supplies, animals, volunteers, and whatever problem needed to be solved next. I did not expect to actually get to know so many of the people on the other end of them.

Some of those conversations will probably only happen once. Others have turned strangers into people I genuinely hope remain in my life after the fire is over. I certainly did not expect that part, but I am incredibly grateful for it.

Part Nine. Ripples Turning into Waves:

I used to think meaningful change required enormous resources, established organizations, or people who already knew exactly what they were doing. This experience has shown me otherwise. Most meaningful change begins quietly. It begins when one person notices something that should not be carried alone and reaches toward another person.

That has been the pattern throughout this fire. A need reaches the right person, that person connects it to someone else, and the answer travels farther than anyone expected. Much of the work has happened between people who may never know one another’s names. They only knew there was something they could do, so they did it.

The conversations have been part of the movement. Each person brought knowledge, perspective, experience, or a connection the person before them didn’t have. What looked like unrelated efforts gradually began working together. Nobody needed to possess every answer because the answers were scattered throughout the community, waiting for people to find one another.

That’s how ripples become waves.

Not through one heroic person standing at the center of everything, but through ordinary people allowing compassion to move through them. One decision reaches another person, who carries it farther. Eventually, what began as a small response becomes something strong enough to hold people who could not possibly carry this alone.

The fire has demonstrated how quickly a landscape can change. These communities have demonstrated how quickly people can rise to meet it. Destruction may have started this story, but it doesn’t get to decide everything the story becomes.

Part Ten. What Remains After the Smoke:

Eventually, this fire will be fully contained, but containment does not mean the fire is out or the work is finished. Firefighters, first responders, and support personnel may remain on the Aspen Acres Fire for weeks or even longer as they work toward full control, extinguish the remaining hot spots, monitor the affected areas, and prevent the fire from reigniting. In time, the emergency vehicles will leave, the notifications will slow, and public attention will begin moving elsewhere. For the families whose lives have been permanently changed, however, even full control will not mean the crisis is over.

Recovery will be quieter than the fire, but it will last much longer. The immediate needs have already begun shifting toward cleanup, insurance claims, temporary and long-term housing, damaged property, as well as early conversations of permits, contractors, repairs, and rebuilding. Enormous decisions will have to be made by people who are still grieving what they lost.

I don’t yet know exactly what my role will look like in the months ahead, but I know I am not ready to stop helping simply because the emergency becomes less visible. My experience of over eighteen years in construction, design, and project management gives me something different to offer during the next stage, and I intend to use it wherever it can make the process feel less overwhelming.

This letter began with my own grief and the strange realization that life continues asking things of us even when part of us wants the world to stop. The fire brought me face to face with thousands of people confronting that same truth in different ways. Some were grieving their homes. Some were grieving the safety they once felt. Others were carrying the fear of what might happen next. Four families connected to Colorado’s firefighting community were grieving Emily Barker, Nick Hutcherson, Sydney Watson, and Nicholas Dale, four people who went to work protecting others and didn’t get to return home. Life didn’t pause long enough for any of us to feel prepared for what came next.

Maybe that is why this has affected me so deeply. I already knew grief could rearrange a life overnight. What I hadn’t fully understood was how much love could help us find our footing within the wreckage.

Life doesn’t pause for grief, but neither does love. Love continues to show up, reach across the distance, and remind us that whatever has been lost, we don’t have to face what comes next alone.

That’s what has carried me after losing my mom. It’s what I have watched carry these communities through the fire, and I believe it is what will carry them through the long work of rebuilding too.

Faith Through Fire does not mean pretending the flames don’t hurt. It means trusting that even here, God is still present and still working through people willing to care for one another.

The smoke will eventually clear. What we choose to carry forward is up to us.

Epilogue. A Story Still Unfolding:

This letter was written in pieces between July 8 and July 19, 2026, while the Aspen Acres Fire was still actively burning and relief efforts continued changing by the hour. As I finalize it, the fire has burned more than 100,000 acres and is 61 percent contained. More than 850 structures have been destroyed.

By the time you read this, portions of it may already be outdated. The acreage may have changed. Containment may have increased. Evacuation orders may have shifted. Additional damage assessments may have been completed, and the needs of affected families, firefighters, volunteers, and evacuated animals may look different than they did when these words were written.

That is the difficulty of documenting something while you are still living through it. This isn’t intended to be a final incident report or a complete historical account of the Aspen Acres Fire. It is a snapshot of what was happening around us, and within me, as our communities responded in real time.

I will continue sharing current information through my Aspen Acres Fire Relief Drive group as verified updates become available. The information will change, the needs will evolve, and the relief effort will adapt alongside them.

Eventually, there will be a final fire update. For the families affected by this fire, it won’t be an ending. It will simply mark the beginning of a new season.

With Gratitude:

I want to take a moment to say thank you to every person who has played a part in this response. There are more people, organizations, businesses, agencies, and volunteers involved than I could ever possibly name individually. I also want to apologize in advance to anyone I may unintentionally miss. Please know that an omission is not a reflection of your contribution or my gratitude. Every person who showed up, offered help, shared information, donated supplies, provided resources, or supported these communities has mattered, whether your name appears here or not.

Andrew, thank you for your willingness to serve and for the passion you have for protecting complete strangers you are unlikely ever to meet. Thank you for selflessly going to the fire line, even when it meant leaving your own children and family behind to help protect someone else’s. Thank you for keeping me updated whenever you could, answering my endless questions, and reassuring me even when I know you were exhausted. Thank you for always finding humor with me in the middle of scary situations and knowing when I need you to make me laugh so I do not spiral over your objectively insane decision to fight fires for money. I am incredibly proud to call you my co-parent and my friend, and even more thankful that our children have a dad whose heart has always been drawn to serving others. They are watching you, whether they realize it or not, and they are learning what courage, sacrifice, and selfless service look like. Thank you for taking the photographs included throughout this letter and allowing me to share a perspective most people will never witness firsthand.

To every firefighter who has served on the Aspen Acres Fire, and to the firefighters currently battling wildfires across our beautiful country, thank you. Most of us will never fully understand the risks you accept, the conditions you endure, the exhaustion you carry, or the sacrifices made by the families waiting for you at home. I hope you know your work is seen, deeply appreciated, and never taken for granted.

To the fire chiefs and firefighters who have personally helped me throughout this effort, thank you. Even while actively fighting this fire and managing responsibilities most of us cannot begin to understand, many of you still offered to volunteer on this side of the response. You connected me with resources, answered my questions about what crews actually needed, helped identify legitimate volunteer opportunities, and offered invaluable advice as I began considering what a future nonprofit and long-term recovery effort could look like. My personal friends and professional colleagues within the fire service have been a tremendous help and an incredible asset throughout all of this. Your experience helped me make better decisions, avoid wasting resources, and direct people toward opportunities where they could genuinely be useful. Thank you for answering my calls and messages, sharing your knowledge so generously, and helping me serve both the firefighters and affected communities more effectively.

To the families of the firefighters and pilots who lost their lives in the line of duty in Colorado this month, there are no words sufficient for what your loved ones gave or what you have been forced to carry. They left home to do work they believed in, knowing the risks but still choosing to stand between danger and people they would likely never meet. Behind every uniform, aircraft, incident report, and name shared in the news was a person who was deeply loved and expected home. Emily Barker, Nick Hutcherson, Sydney Watson, and Nicholas Dale will not be remembered only for the way they died, but for the lives they lived, the people they loved, the work they believed in, and the courage with which they served. Their names, service, and sacrifice will not be forgotten. My heart and prayers remain with every person who loved them and every crew now learning how to continue without them.

To every law enforcement officer, dispatcher, EMS provider, emergency manager, public works employee, utility worker, equipment operator, incident management team member, and first responder who has supported this effort, thank you. Communities do not endure disasters like this because of one profession. They endure them because countless people quietly perform the jobs the rest of us rarely think about until we desperately need them.

To every volunteer, donor, church, nonprofit organization, business, rancher, grassroots organizer, and neighbor who stepped forward, thank you. Thank you for opening your buildings, barns, pastures, wallets, vehicles, and homes. Thank you for moving animals, collecting supplies, delivering donations, answering questions, sharing verified information, and filling gaps before anyone had the time to formally ask you. You carried far more than donations. You carried hope, and you reminded people facing some of the hardest days of their lives that they were not alone.

To the other people who independently began relief efforts, thank you for welcoming collaboration and for continuing to place the needs of these communities above recognition or ownership. It has been an honor to work beside people who understand that helping effectively matters far more than receiving credit for it.

To every person who trusted me enough to ask for help, share information, offer a resource, or tell me part of your story, thank you. I know many of those conversations began during moments of fear, uncertainty, and exhaustion. I do not take your trust lightly.

To my three incredible children, thank you for sharing your mom with this community. Thank you for loading donations, sorting supplies, making firefighter thank-you cards, helping wherever you were asked, adjusting when plans changed, and reminding me to laugh when I needed it most. I hope one day you look back on this and understand that you were never simply watching kindness happen. You were part of it. Each one of you has a heart of pure gold, and I am truly thankful that God chose me to be your mom.

To my dad, thank you for understanding why this effort has become so important to me while we are both still learning how to continue our lives and work without Mom. Thank you for supporting what I have been doing and for being willing to use your decades of construction knowledge and experience to help families navigate the rebuilding process when that time comes. I am grateful to know that as the needs shift from immediate relief toward recovery and rebuilding, we will be able to use the work we already know how to do to continue serving these communities together.

To my friends, thank you for loving me through the organized and occasionally very unorganized chaos. Thank you for answering phone calls, listening to me think out loud, tolerating my inability to sit still, and gently reminding me to eat, sleep, and occasionally put my phone down. I know I have been a distant friend while trying to manage this effort, and I am grateful for every person who continued to check on me anyway.

To my clients and professional partners, thank you for your patience, flexibility, encouragement, and trust. Grace by Design, CO., has continued operating throughout this fire, and I am incredibly grateful for the people who understood that I was balancing my professional responsibilities with a community need I couldn’t ignore.

Finally, to every person who reads The Lotus Letters, thank you. Thank you for reading my words, subscribing, encouraging me, and somehow convincing me that my endless word vomit occasionally deserves a place in the world. Writing has always been how I make sense of life, and the fact that so many of you choose to join me in that process is a gift I will never take for granted.

This letter may be finished, but the work is not.

Thank you all for continuing to show up.

All my love,

Kailey Wheatley

Faith Through the Fire.

Aspen Acres Fire Relief Drive

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I’ve never been particularly impressed by surface-level attraction. Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate a handsome man as much as the next woman. Beauty catches your attention. It always will. But I’ve learned that physical attraction has remarkably little staying power. It captures your attention for a moment, but it rarely earns your admiration for a lifetime.

Physical attraction may spark curiosity, but it’s the intellect that sustains it. Intellectual conversation determines whether we’re driving a Ferrari or a shopping cart with one wheel that squeaks. The person whose mind is more captivating than their appearance is the reason attraction doesn’t fade when familiarity sets in.

There is something profoundly attractive about genuine intellectual curiosity. I’m not talking about the kind of intelligence that throws around five-dollar words in hopes of sounding impressive. I’m talking about the person who genuinely thinks. The one who asks questions because they’re curious, not because they’re waiting for their turn to speak. The one who’s secure enough to say, “I don’t know,” and interested enough to learn the answer. The one who’s read enough to understand how much there still is to learn.

Maybe that’s why I find the most fascinating people are the ones who reveal another layer every time you talk to them. Every conversation uncovers a new perspective, another interest, another story, another way of looking at the world you hadn’t considered before. It turns out Shrek may have been making a far more sophisticated point than any of us gave him credit for. “Donkey, ogres are like onions.”

The most worthwhile people invariably are.

I think the layers are what keep people interested.

But if, somewhere between discussing history, theology, economics, literature, or why the Oxford comma deserves constitutional protection, you make me laugh?

God help me.

There is something almost unfair about an intelligent person with genuine wit.

Not someone who’s loud. Not someone who’s crude. Not someone who confuses cynicism with intelligence or sarcasm with a personality. Don’t get me wrong, crude humor has its place, and I’ll probably laugh harder than I should. I just don’t find it particularly interesting when it’s all a person has to offer.

I mean real wit. The kind that can’t be manufactured because it exists in real time. It demands observation, and timing. A broad vocabulary helps, but an even broader curiosity matters more. It requires actually listening instead of simply waiting for your turn to speak. It’s the ability to recognize patterns, make unexpected connections, and deliver them with such precision that everyone else wonders why they didn’t think of it first.

Because wit isn’t something you perform. It’s evidence of the way a person thinks.

I think that’s what I find so attractive. Not the joke itself, but the mind that made it possible.

That’s why real banter is so rare.

Anyone can flirt. There are entire books, podcasts, and social media accounts devoted to teaching people how to do that. Flirting can be rehearsed. Banter can’t. Banter is created in real time. It’s two curious minds volleying ideas back and forth until neither person remembers who served first. One minute you’re discussing grammar, the next you’re debating theology, somehow, you’ve wandered into economics, and before either of you realizes it, you’re conducting a mock courtroom trial over whether a hot dog qualifies as a sandwich. Neither of you planned it. You’re simply keeping up with each other.

That, to me, is chemistry.

I’ve never wanted someone who agrees with me all the time. Constant agreement sounds terribly boring. I want someone who respectfully challenges my thinking without challenging my character. Someone who can disagree with an idea without feeling compelled to diminish the person holding it. Those are two entirely different things, and I’m not convinced enough people still recognize the distinction.

The smartest people I’ve known have also been the most intellectually humble. They don’t feel the need to announce how intelligent they are because they aren’t seeking validation for it. You notice it anyway. It’s in the questions they ask. It’s in the way they reconsider their position when presented with better information. It’s in their willingness to explore an idea instead of trying to conquer it. Genuine intelligence has always seemed far more interested in understanding than in winning.

I’ve also discovered that I have an entirely unreasonable appreciation for language.

I notice syntax.

I appreciate precision.

I have an almost embarrassing affection for people who understand the power of a well-placed comma. Not because punctuation makes someone intelligent, but because precision reflects thoughtfulness. Words matter. The right word doesn’t merely communicate an idea; it communicates the right idea. There’s a difference, and I’ve always appreciated people who know it.

Maybe that’s why conversations have always mattered so much to me.

The right conversation can make an ordinary Tuesday unforgettable. A passing observation becomes an inside joke. A thoughtful disagreement becomes mutual respect. You laugh until your stomach hurts, and somewhere along the way you realize you’ve accidentally spent three hours discussing everything from Greek philosophy to whether cereal is technically soup. You leave the conversation feeling lighter than when it started, but somehow, you’ve also learned something.

Those are the conversations that stay with you.

The older I get, the more convinced I become that intelligence isn’t about knowing everything. It’s about remaining curious. It’s about being teachable. It’s about finding joy in learning, questioning, wondering, and occasionally laughing at yourself when you discover you’ve been wrong.

I suppose that’s what I’ve been looking for all along.

Not perfection. Not endless agreement. Not someone who performs intelligence. Someone who delights in it.

Someone whose wit is every bit as sharp as their kindness. Someone who can spar without wounding, challenge without belittling, and make me laugh until I completely forget what we were talking about in the first place.

Because yes, a beautiful face will always catch your attention.

But a beautiful mind?

That’s the part you never forget.

Faith Through the Fire.

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Someone asked me today if I would write a “grow up” article. First of all, I was honored. It still catches me off guard that people read these little ramblings of mine and think, I wonder what she would have to say about this. The topic came after a friend of mine shared a story that isn’t mine to tell, so I’ll leave the details where they belong. What stuck with me wasn’t the story itself anyway. It was the conversation that followed and one question I couldn’t stop asking myself long after our conversation ended.

When does reaching out to an ex’s new partner become the right thing to do?

It’s one of those questions that sounds simple until you actually sit with it. Social media certainly has an opinion. Half the people will tell you to expose them. The other half will tell you to mind your own business. Somewhere in the middle is where real life usually lives, and real life is almost never as black and white as the internet wants it to be.

Here’s where I landed…

I don’t think the question is whether you should reach out. I think the question is why you want to.

If someone is abusive, violent, predatory, or genuinely dangerous, I don’t think protecting another person is petty. I think it’s the right thing to do. If you know someone poses a real threat, I would hope your conscience would push you to say something. There are situations where staying silent could have consequences that last a lifetime, and I don’t believe those should ever be dismissed as “drama” or “just a bad breakup.”

But my thoughts on the matter may make some of you clutch your pearls… not every ex is dangerous simply because they hurt you.

That is the part I think we’ve started blurring together. Somewhere along the way we’ve decided that every painful breakup deserves a warning label. We call it looking out for the next person, but I wonder how often we’re willing to be brutally honest with ourselves about what is actually motivating us. Is it concern? Is it fear for another person’s safety? Or is it anger? Is it jealousy? Is it the sting of watching someone who hurt us move on while we’re still trying to figure out what the hell happened?

Those are uncomfortable questions, but I think they’re necessary ones.

Pain has a funny way of convincing us we’re acting selflessly. It whispers that we’re just trying to help. That people deserve to know. That we’d want someone to do the same for us. Sometimes that’s absolutely true. Sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes what we’re really looking for is validation. We want someone else to confirm we weren’t crazy. We want someone to understand how deeply we were hurt. We want our pain to matter. None of those things make us bad people. They make us human. But they also don’t automatically make reaching out the right decision.

I’ve lived enough life to know that relationships are complicated because people are complicated. I’ve been divorced twice. I’ve been deeply loved and deeply disappointed. I’ve had people misunderstand me, and if I’m being completely honest, I’m sure there are seasons of my life where I’ve misunderstood other people too. Every relationship has two people carrying away memories, and those memories are rarely identical. We all remember the moments that left scars a little more vividly than the moments that brought us peace.

That doesn’t mean every story deserves to be retold to the next person who walks into their life.

I think we’ve become so focused on making sure people know what happened to us that we’ve forgotten to ask whether telling them actually serves a purpose. Is this information going to protect someone from genuine harm? Or is it simply going to invite them into a relationship they were never part of? There is a difference, and I think we’ve stopped respecting it.

The older I get, the more I realize intentions matter just as much as actions do. Two people can send the exact same message for completely different reasons. One person sends it because they’re terrified someone else will become another victim. The other sends it because they can’t stand the thought of their ex finding happiness before they have. On the surface those messages may look identical. Underneath, they couldn’t be more different.

I also think we underestimate what healing actually looks like. Healing isn’t pretending someone didn’t hurt you. It isn’t pretending the relationship was healthier than it was. It isn’t rewriting history so everyone gets a happy ending. Healing is being able to separate your pain from your purpose. It is having enough self awareness to ask yourself whether you’re acting out of love for another person or unresolved hurt within yourself.

Maybe that’s what growing up really is.

Not becoming indifferent.

Not becoming emotionless.

Not pretending heartbreak doesn’t change you.

Maybe growing up is having the courage to sit with your own motives before inserting yourself into someone else’s story. Maybe it’s recognizing that protecting another person and punishing another person are not the same thing, even if they sometimes look similar from the outside.

The woman I spoke with today gave me a lot to think about. I don’t know that there’s a perfect answer because life rarely offers those. What I do know is this. Before we convince ourselves we’re acting out of concern, we owe it to ourselves to ask one more question.

If this person never dated again, would I still feel compelled to say something?

If the answer is yes, perhaps your concern really is about protecting someone.

If the answer is no, perhaps the conversation you need to have isn’t with their new partner.

Perhaps it’s with yourself.

Because sometimes the greatest act of maturity isn’t finding the courage to send the message.

Sometimes it’s finding the courage to finally let go.

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I don’t understand ghosting. Not because I don’t understand that people lose interest, because they do. Not because I believe every conversation, date, spark, or connection is supposed to turn into something meaningful, because it isn’t. Sometimes two people are not the right fit. Sometimes the timing is off. Sometimes the interest just isn’t there in the way one person hoped it was. That part is life. That part is dating. That part, while disappointing, is at least honest.

What I don’t understand is how we have turned disappearing into a personality trait and then dressed it up as “protecting our peace.” As if vanishing mid-conversation is some enlightened act of emotional maturity instead of what it usually is: avoiding one uncomfortable sentence.

Modern dating has made ghosts out of grown adults with fully functioning phones. One day they are asking about your week, sending thoughtful messages, acting interested, making comments that suggest there may be some sort of potential, and the next day they apparently throw their phone into a river and join witness protection. Except, of course, they are still alive. Still posting. Still viewing stories. Still existing in the same digital universe where sending, “Hey, I don’t think this is the right fit,” would have taken less time than watching someone’s Instagram story.

And that’s what makes it ridiculous.

Not heartbreaking in the dramatic sense. Just ridiculous. Because we are not teenagers passing notes in a hallway anymore. We are adults. Adults with jobs, bills, children, responsibilities, calendars, trauma, therapy bills, and enough life experience to know that silence is not communication. It’s not kindness. It’s not clarity. It’s not some mysterious romantic pause that makes someone more intriguing. It’s just poor communication wearing a trench coat.

Somewhere along the way, people started saying, “I don’t owe anyone anything,” and while technically that may be true, I have never believed kindness begins and ends with obligation. You may not owe someone a relationship. You may not owe someone your continued attention. You may not owe someone an explanation for every feeling that changes inside of you. But if someone gave you their time, their energy, their curiosity, and the benefit of believing you were being genuine, a simple sentence is not exactly a heroic sacrifice.

It’s basic decency.

Ghosting is strange because it forces the other person to become both the investigator and the judge. They are left examining the evidence, building the timeline, replaying conversations, and trying to decide whether they missed something obvious. Did I say too much? Did I not say enough? Were they ever actually interested? Are they busy? Are they emotionally unavailable? Are they just inconsiderate? Should I reach out again? Should I pretend I don’t care? Should I delete the thread and act evolved?

Meanwhile, the ghost is usually doing absolutely nothing profound. They are not in a cave somewhere wrestling with the moral weight of their silence. They are probably just avoiding accountability and calling it space.

That may sound petty, but maybe ghosting deserves a little pettiness. We’ve given it far too much grace as a culture. We have analyzed it, justified it, excused it, and built entire conversations around why people disappear instead of simply admitting that a lot of adults have become very comfortable enjoying access to people without carrying the responsibility of consideration.

And no, not every silence is ghosting. Life gets hard. People get overwhelmed. Grief happens. Mental health happens. Work happens. Family happens. Sometimes people really do need room to breathe. I can understand that. Most reasonable people can understand that. But needing space and leaving someone to question their own reality are not the same thing. “I’m overwhelmed and need a little time” is space. Silence with no explanation is avoidance.

There’s a huge difference.

I think what bothers me most about ghosting is not that it ends something. Plenty of things end. Dating is full of almosts, maybes, and not-quites. The problem is that ghosting leaves the door cracked just enough for confusion to crawl in. It doesn’t give closure. It gives static. It leaves one person standing there with their dignity in one hand and their phone in the other, wondering if they should knock again on a door the other person quietly walked away from.

And honestly, that’s not romance. That’s not mystery. That’s not “letting things unfold.” That is a grown adult failing the easiest part of emotional responsibility.

The older I get, the less impressed I am by charm. Charm is easy. Anyone can be charming for a little while. Anyone can say the right thing when the mood is light and the attention feels good. What impresses me now is consistency. Consideration. The ability to communicate when it is not fun, convenient, or flattering. The ability to be honest without making someone drag the truth out of you like a hostage negotiation.

That’s attractive.

Ghosting is not.

Maybe dating would feel less exhausting if we stopped rewarding ambiguity like it is depth. Maybe mixed signals are not actually complicated. Maybe some people are just inconsistent, and we have been calling it chemistry because the truth sounds less poetic. Maybe silence is not always a sign to try harder. Maybe sometimes it is just a sign to raise the standard and move accordingly.

Because behind every message thread is a real person. Not a placeholder. Not entertainment. Not an ego boost. Not someone to keep around until you decide whether you are bored, lonely, interested, healed, confused, or in the mood to be decent.

A person.

And if dating has taught me anything, it’s that the people worth knowing do not need to be begged into basic communication. They may not have all the answers. They may not always get it right. They may need time, space, grace, and patience. But they will not leave you performing emotional gymnastics over whether you matter.

Ghosts don’t haunt houses anymore.

They haunt inboxes, unread messages, story views, and the weird little silence between what someone said and what they were actually willing to do.

And maybe the most mature thing we can do is stop chasing them with a flashlight.

Let the ghosts be ghosts.

The living know how to speak.

Apparently, I gave humanity too much credit.

Recently, after receiving an unsolicited video from a complete stranger, I found myself thinking, “Well, I guess it’s time to dust this one off.” Because somehow, over a year later, this article rings clearer than ever.

Ladies, if you’re reading this, I know I’m not alone. Somewhere, another woman is rolling her eyes, blocking a number, and wondering who on earth told men this was a viable strategy.

Gentlemen, if you’re reading this and you’ve never done such a thing, thank you. Truly. Some of my favorite male friends would never dream of behaving this way. But for the few who apparently still believe surprise nudity is the modern equivalent of a bouquet of flowers, allow me to lovingly and sarcastically reintroduce a classic.

Because it is 2026.

And somehow, we’re still having this conversation…

D*ck Pic Apocalypse:

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May this letter serve as a small reminder that love outlives loss, and that two women who were so profoundly loved will continue to be remembered, cherished, and deeply missed by those fortunate enough to have known them. Rest easy, beauties.

A few weeks ago, in the midst of what felt like complete chaos while I was planning my mother’s celebration of life, I had a phone call with the florist to discuss arrangements for the service.

At the time, it felt like one more thing on the endless list of responsibilities that suddenly become yours when someone dies. Food. Flowers. Head-counts. Timelines. Decisions. The strange administrative side of grief nobody prepares you for. The administrative side no one talks about… A topic I seem to find myself talking about a lot these days.

The truth is, the moment her email came through my inbox, I knew exactly who she was.

I recognized her name immediately.

For a second, I just sat there staring at the screen because suddenly I was no longer just planning my mother’s memorial service. I was being pulled backward through time.

She was the florist from my wedding.

The same woman who once helped my mom and I choose flowers for one of the happiest days of my life was now helping me choose flowers for one of the hardest.

Honestly, it felt surreal. Like life had folded in on itself for a moment.

I could picture that younger version of myself so clearly. Hopeful. Certain. Standing at the beginning of a life she thought she understood. Talking about bouquets and centerpieces and forever while my mom sat beside me. Back then, neither of us had any idea what life would eventually hold.

Years later, I found myself sitting in the middle of grief, planning a celebration of life for the woman who gave me mine.

As we talked, the conversation naturally drifted into catching up. After all, so much time had passed since we had spoken, and a lot can happen in the space between wedding flowers and funeral flowers.

I told her about my divorce. I told her about starting my business and taking the leap into entrepreneurship. I told her about my mom’s passing and how much life had changed in what felt like the blink of an eye.

Then she shared her own story.

She told me she had recently lost her niece.

Immediately, my heart broke for her. Not in the polite way people say, “I’m sorry for your loss.” I mean truly broke.

Because grief recognizes grief before words ever do.

You can hear it in someone’s voice. You can feel it in the pauses between sentences. There is a certain exhaustion to people carrying fresh heartbreak. Like they are trying to stay upright while carrying something invisible and impossibly heavy.

Then came another one of those moments that made me pause.

She told me they had moved to the same state my dad’s side of the family is from. Another unexpected connection. Another reminder that life has a funny way of weaving people together when you least expect it.

The conversation stopped feeling like a business call. It felt like two women comparing notes on survival and genuinely finding solace in one another.

One grieving her mother. One grieving her niece. Both trying to make sense of the chapters life had written since we last spoke.

I don’t think moments like that are meaningless anymore.

In fact, the older I get, the less I believe in coincidence.

I think God whispers through details most people would overlook if they weren’t hurting deeply enough to notice them.

Before this season of my life, I expected faith to look bigger somehow. Louder. More certain.

But grief changed the way I experience God.

Now He feels quieter.

More present in timing. More present in connection. More present in people.

Because what were the odds?

Out of every florist I could have connected with, it was her. A familiar face from a beautiful chapter of my life unexpectedly reappearing during one of the hardest.

And before our conversation was over, she had unknowingly reminded me of something I desperately needed to remember.

Presence matters.

The kind of presence that softens loneliness for a moment.

Because grief is isolating in ways I never understood before living through it. The world keeps moving while yours feels frozen. People continue their routines while you’re sitting there trying to comprehend how someone who shaped your entire life can suddenly no longer exist within it physically.

And yet somehow, God kept placing people in my path who reminded me I wasn’t alone inside of it. Honestly, He still is…

A friend texting at exactly the right moment. Someone sharing a story about my mom I’d never heard before. A stranger hugging me a little too long because they understood this pain too.

The older I get, the more I realize faith is less about certainty and more about noticing.

Noticing the tenderness that still exists inside a broken world. Noticing the people God places in front of us at exactly the right time. Noticing the sacredness hidden inside ordinary moments.

Because that day was never supposed to be profound.

It was supposed to be a phone call about flowers for a celebration of life.

Instead, it became a reminder that God still sits with us in grieving places. He still moves through human connection, compassion, and the people He places in our path at exactly the right time.

Life is strange sometimes.

And even now, when I think back on that conversation, I don’t remember the flowers nearly as much as I remember the reminder that some of the most meaningful moments in life are the ones we never planned for.

The conversations that become more than conversations.

The people who unexpectedly reappear.

The connections that seem too unlikely to be random.

Call it serendipity. Call it providence. Call it God.

Whatever you call it, I know this:

He was there then.

And He is here now.

Faith Through the Fire

I sat down to write this when my phone buzzed to remind me that bedtime is at 10:30…

It’s cute, really.

The optimism of technology assuming I am a person who simply wraps up their evening, brushes their teeth, folds a blanket, and peacefully drifts off to sleep…

I know, I’m the one who set my phone to yell at me so I can attempt to be an “adulty adult.” I still like to pretend it has a mind of its own and takes great pleasure in reminding me how badly I’m failing at bedtime.

The reality is that it’s 10:00 PM, I’m sitting on my patio, have been working from my phone, and I’ve been awake since 5:00 this morning. By the time I finally put my phone down tonight, it will have been another sixteen-hour work day and I’ll have been awake over nineteen hours.

Meanwhile, between me and my bed sits a mountain of clean laundry that has been there long enough to qualify as a permanent fixture. At this point, it feels less like laundry and more like a roommate. I keep thinking about it, mentally calculating whether I have enough energy to fold it or if I should just shove it to one side and sleep around it. The laundry knows the answer. I know the answer. My best friends all know the answer. We’re very well aware that pile is spending another night exactly where it is.

Today was one of those sixteen-hour work days that somehow feels like three days crammed into one. The kind where you’re answering emails while driving between meetings, returning text messages while standing in a tile aisle, reviewing plans while waiting for callbacks, and mentally juggling a dozen deadlines at the same time.

Somewhere between reviewing insurance policies, discussing projects with four different clients, explaining how to properly waterproof a shower, wandering the tile store for the third time this week, talking with building departments, coordinating trade partners, finalizing schedules for multiple projects, reviewing plans for new homes, and putting out the countless little fires that come with running a business… The day disappeared before I even realized it had started.

The funny thing about working from home is that people imagine it as peaceful. I’m constantly told, “It must be so nice to work from home.”

And honestly? It sounds nice in theory.

They picture a beautiful home office, a hot cup of coffee, a quiet house, and uninterrupted productivity. They imagine me peacefully working my way through projects while checking things off a neatly organized to-do list.

What they don’t picture is my actual office.

My desk currently disappears beneath plan sets, material samples, paint colors, insurance paperwork, permit notes, sticky notes, business cards, and probably enough coffee cups to suggest I have a problem. Every flat surface has become storage for a project that’s in progress. The floor is questionable. The filing system is largely dependent on me remembering where I set something down three days ago.

In my defense, it looked clean for almost fifteen minutes last week!

What they also don’t picture is summer break with three children.

Summer break means I primarily work from my home office while three kids possess an almost supernatural ability to sense the exact moment I need to focus. I can sit quietly reviewing plans, answering emails, working through design selections, or writing proposals for thirty minutes without hearing a single peep.

Then I answer a phone call.

Immediately someone is hungry. Someone can’t find their charger. Someone is fighting with a sibling. Someone needs help. Someone needs a snack. Someone needs a play date. Someone has a question that absolutely cannot wait another thirty seconds.

Every. Single. Time.

I genuinely believe children have a secret alarm system that only activates when their mother becomes busy. The second I need uninterrupted focus, they materialize out of thin air like tiny, adorable project managers determined to make sure I never complete a task in one sitting.

The irony is that when you’re self-employed and in the building stages of your business, there isn’t anyone else to pick up the slack. The phone still has to be answered. The clients still need answers. The deadlines still exist. The plans still need reviewed. The deck color still needs selected.

The reality is that the work follows you. It follows you out of the office, into your truck, into your kitchen, and sometimes right into dinner.

Earlier in the day, my dad had invited me and my three little tornadoes over for dinner. He cooked while I kept working. We both own our businesses, and since I project manage and design many of his projects, talking shop over dinner is pretty standard around here. As he stood there making dinner, I was catching him up on schedules, permits, clients, trade partners, and the hundred moving pieces that had occupied my day. The kids were running around, dinner was cooking, and neither one of us had really clocked out.

We were just having a work meeting with tacos.

When dinner was finally ready, I sat down long enough to inhale a plate of food in approximately five minutes. Not because I wasn’t grateful. I was. Not because I didn’t enjoy it. I really did. But the emails were still waiting. The schedules still needed finalized. The plans still needed reviewed. The to-do list was still sitting there, somehow longer than it had been this morning.

Then came the nightly routine of getting my kids settled for bed. Pajamas. Teeth. Last-minute snacks. Finding the stuffed animal that suddenly couldn’t be located. One more drink of water. One more question. One more hug.

Eventually the house got quiet.

And I went back to work.

Because that’s the reality of this season. The kids go to bed, but the responsibilities don’t. They simply wait for the house to get quiet enough for me to hear them again.

It seems like that’s become a theme lately. Keep moving. Keep working. Keep answering questions. Keep solving problems. Keep showing up. The pace of life leaves very little room for stillness, and maybe part of me is grateful for that.

Because if I stop for too long, I inevitably run into the thing I’ve been carrying through all of it.

Grief.

That’s the part I don’t like to talk about. Grief doesn’t clear your schedule. It doesn’t politely step aside while you run a business, raise children, answer emails, attend meetings, and pay bills. It just comes with you. It rides shotgun. It sits quietly in client meetings. It follows you through material stores. It sneaks up on you when you see something you’d normally text your mom about and suddenly remember you can’t.

The world keeps moving even when your heart is trying to catch up.

So you keep moving too.

Because there are kids who need dinner. Clients who need answers. Projects that need decisions. A business that depends on you showing up. Friends you’re trying to make time for. A social life you’re attempting to maintain. And despite every instinct screaming for a pause button, life keeps demanding forward motion.

Then there’s Goose.

My one hundred and sixty pound Cane Corso puppy. Or as I affectionately call him, my house horse.

Today Goose experienced what can only be described as a spiritual encounter with the zoomies. For reasons known only to him and possibly Jesus Himself, Goosey launched his entire body into mine with the enthusiasm of a freight train. He was thrilled. I was briefly convinced I might need medical attention. He remained completely unapologetic and convinced this was an acceptable display of affection. I’m fine, Goose needs someone else to throw this ball, though.

Meanwhile, people keep talking about self-care.

Self-care.

What an adorable concept.

My nails are overgrown. I found another grey hair this week. My skincare routine currently consists of washing my face when I remember. I can’t actually remember the last time I sat down and watched a show without simultaneously answering emails. I’m not entirely convinced I drank enough water today. There’s a very real possibility my bloodstream is now equal parts coffee and Red Bull.

Most days, my version of self-care is sitting in silence for a few minutes before walking into the next meeting. Sometimes it’s locking the bathroom door for three uninterrupted minutes.

And yet, somewhere in the middle of the chaos, I realized something.

Maybe self-care doesn’t always look like spa days, massages, and perfectly curated routines.

Maybe sometimes self-care looks like writing.

Maybe it looks like sitting on a patio at midnight after a sixteen-hour workday, thinking about a pile of laundry standing between you and your bed, wondering if you’ve consumed enough water to sustain human life, and deciding to write anyway.

Maybe it looks like allowing yourself to acknowledge that you’re carrying a lot.

A business. Three kids. A house that never quite stays clean. Friendships you’re trying to nurture. A social life you’re trying not to neglect. Deadlines. Responsibilities. Grief.

Some days it feels manageable. Other days it feels like I’m one missing charger away from a complete emotional breakdown.

And yet, every morning, we get up and do it again.

Not because we’re superheroes. Not because we’re stronger than everyone else. But because life doesn’t give us another option. We adapt. We figure it out. We carry the impossible load one day at a time. Some days gracefully. Some days held together entirely by caffeine, dry shampoo, and sheer determination.

Tonight, the laundry will probably stay exactly where it is.

My bedtime reminder will continue judging me.

The emails will still be there tomorrow. The tile selections will get finished. The plans will get sent. The permit department will eventually call me back. Goose will undoubtedly find another way to nearly kill me with affection. The kids will wake up needing seventeen things before I’ve had my first cup of coffee.

And eventually, I will go to sleep.

Not because everything is done.

But because I’ve finally learned something that took me years to understand.

The goal was never to do it all perfectly.

The goal was simply to keep showing up.

Even tired.

Even grieving.

Even overwhelmed.

Even when the laundry wins.

Especially when the laundry wins.

Because sometimes the strongest thing a person can do isn’t conquering the chaos.

Sometimes it’s climbing into bed beside it, setting the alarm for another impossibly full day, and trusting that tomorrow you’ll somehow find a way through it too.

Faith Through the Fire. 

The Paradox of Power

There is a breed of woman that scares the unready and inspires the observant. She is the kind of woman who can destroy you with her words but chooses to use them to build something instead. She is fire and grace, war and prayer, iron and silk all in one. People call her complicated. What she really is, is complete.

She is the one who will go to war for what is right, stand toe to toe with men twice her size, and not blink. She does not crumble under pressure. She thrives in it. She has been underestimated her entire life and has learned how to turn that into fuel. But she is also the one who knows when to stop talking, when to walk away, and when silence carries more authority than a raised voice ever could.

This woman has seen life from the battlefield and the balcony. She has fought through betrayal, heartbreak, loss, and disappointment, yet still chooses to be the light. She is not naïve. She is intentional. Her softness is not born of ease but of experience. She knows what pain feels like and still chooses to reach for peace. That is the rarest kind of courage.

The Duality of the Modern Woman

Women like this are not soft by accident. They are soft by choice. They have learned that true strength is not about being the loudest. It is about being unshakable. They can hold their own in a room full of egos, and still hold a crying friend with gentleness that feels like home.

They have built careers, families, and futures with their bare hands. They have cried in bathrooms, fixed their makeup, and gone right back to the boardroom. They are the glue and the gasoline, the reason things hold together and the spark that keeps them moving forward.

They are emotional realists, able to feel everything deeply without drowning in it. They can show empathy without losing boundaries. They know that vulnerability is not exposure. It is control. They do not beg for respect. They embody it.

These women understand the rhythm of balance. They can be chaos when they need to be, peace when they choose to be, and immovable when the world tries to push them off center. They are not afraid of their power, but they also do not let it run wild. Their strength is measured, not manic. Their kindness is deliberate, not naive.

The Weight of Being Both

Being both strong and soft is not for the faint of heart. It is exhausting to carry a sword in one hand and compassion in the other. To demand justice while maintaining grace. To be fierce enough to lead but humble enough to listen.

It means fighting battles no one sees and still showing up for others with a smile. It means being the one everyone turns to, even when you have no one to turn to yourself. It means carrying the weight of everyone’s expectations while pretending it is light.

Women like this do not perform balance. They live it. They can walk into chaos and bring calm. They can sit in boardrooms and bars, command respect in both, and know exactly who they are. They can cry without apology, then close a deal ten minutes later. They can be lovers, mothers, leaders, and friends without losing sight of themselves.

Softness as Strategy

Softness, for these women, is never submission. It is discernment. It is a deliberate act of control in a world addicted to reaction. It is the ability to take a deep breath instead of taking the bait. To know when to use compassion as a weapon and when to use silence as a boundary.

Soft women are not easy. They are aware. They know how to make a point without raising a fist. They have mastered the art of choosing peace over pettiness, not because they are afraid of conflict but because they have outgrown it.

Softness is restraint disguised as grace. It is the art of knowing your power and not needing to prove it. It is the strength that comes from self-awareness, from knowing exactly what you bring to the table and refusing to sit where you are not respected.

What Strength Really Looks Like

The strongest women you will ever meet are often the ones who still laugh easily. Who can pour you a drink, call you out, and hug you in the same breath. They are not building empires to prove they can. They are building them because they are done asking permission.

They have fought their own wars and buried their own dead. They have lived through heartbreaks that could have hardened them and instead decided to stay open. They have been betrayed and still believe in connection. That is not weakness. That is resilience of the highest order.

Their power is not loud. It is steady. It shows up in the way they walk away from things that no longer feed their peace. It shows up in the way they love again after devastation. It shows up in the way they refuse to let bitterness become their personality.

A Mirror of Myself

I see myself in those women. I have been the fire and I have been the calm. I have learned the difference between defending my peace and defending my pride. I know the value of restraint. I know when to walk away and when to dig my heels in until the earth cracks.

I am not soft because life made it easy to be. I am soft because I have survived enough to know that softness is a superpower. I have learned how to wield it with intention. That is the energy strong women carry, the kind that can break you with logic or heal you with a look.

Softness is not the absence of strength. It is strength under control. It is emotional intelligence mixed with instinct. It is fire that knows when to burn and when to warm. It is a reminder that even chaos can be beautiful when it is focused.

The Legacy of Strong, Soft Women

The world needs more women who embody that contradiction. Women who can be powerful without being cruel. Who can lead with love and still command authority. Who can cry without apology, and still be the backbone of everything around them.

These women are not broken. They are refined. Forged in pressure, tempered by heart. They are reminders that softness does not mean surrender. It means mastery. It means you have learned how to live in your power without letting it poison your peace.

Strong, soft women are raising sons who respect emotion and daughters who do not fear it. They are changing what leadership looks like, what femininity sounds like, and what strength feels like. They are the new blueprint, the evolution of what it means to be powerful.

The Last Word

Soft does not mean spineless. It means knowing when to draw blood and when to draw breath. It is being gentle in a world that mistakes volume for strength. It is fighting your battles with dignity, not destruction. It is looking power in the face and saying, I do not have to yell to win.

Strong women are not afraid to be soft. They are just smart enough to know when to be which. They are the storm and the stillness, the flame and the calm, the boundary and the grace. And that is what makes them unstoppable.

Faith Through the Fire.

There is a phrase I hear often in dating conversations.

“If they wanted to, they would.”

For a long time, I resisted that idea because life is more complicated than a catchy phrase. People have jobs, children, obligations, grief, responsibilities, insecurities, and entire worlds existing outside of a relationship. I don’t think effort means someone drops everything and makes another person the center of their universe. I don’t think healthy love requires constant attention, endless communication, or grand gestures.

What I do think it requires is intention.

Lately, I have found myself paying attention to the difference between words and effort. Not because I have become cynical, but because life has taught me that the two are not always the same thing. People can have wonderful intentions. They can care deeply. They can even believe every word they are saying when they say it. But at some point, intentions have to become actions. Otherwise the person on the receiving end is left trying to build certainty out of promises.

I think that is where so much confusion in modern dating comes from.

We have become obsessed with potential.

We date people for who they could be. We hold onto what they might do. We listen to what they intend to do someday while quietly ignoring what they are actually doing today.

I know this because I have done it myself.

I have listened to explanations when what I really needed was consistency. I have given grace where I should have required clarity. I have accepted confusion because I was trying to be understanding. There is nothing wrong with being understanding, but eventually understanding becomes self-abandonment when it requires you to ignore your own needs.

And one of my needs is consistency.

Not perfection.

Consistency.

There is a difference.

I do not need someone to text me every hour. I do not need daily declarations of affection. I do not need someone whose entire life revolves around me. What I need is much simpler than that. I need someone’s actions to make sense alongside their words. I need to know that if they say I matter, their behavior reflects that I matter. I need to know that if they are interested in building something, they are actually picking up a hammer.

Maybe that sounds old fashioned.

Maybe it is.

But I have reached a point in my life where I am no longer interested in relationships that require constant interpretation. I don’t want to analyze screenshots with my friends. I don’t want to decode response times. I don’t want to wonder whether someone’s silence means they are busy, overwhelmed, uninterested, afraid, or simply keeping me around as an option.

I want clarity.

Not because I am impatient.

Because I am tired.

Life has given me enough uncertainty already.

The irony is that I hold myself to the exact same standard.

One thing that has frustrated me over the years is being told who I am by people who were unwilling to listen to what I actually said. I have been called inconsistent because I did not move at someone else’s pace. I have been accused of being afraid of commitment because I was honest that something wasn’t right for me, or wasn’t right for me in that moment. I have watched people create entire stories about my intentions while completely disregarding my actual words.

The truth is far less dramatic.

I say what I mean.

I mean what I say.

If I tell someone I care about them, I care about them.

If I tell someone I need time, I need time.

If I tell someone I cannot give them what they need, I am not playing games. I am not creating a challenge to overcome. I am not waiting to be convinced otherwise. I am simply telling the truth.

And if that truth doesn’t work for them, they should leave.

Not because they are unworthy of love.

Because they deserve a relationship that aligns with what they need.

Just as I do.

I think what I have learned through loss, heartbreak, motherhood, business ownership, faith, and all of the other fires life has asked me to walk through is that effort is not measured by what someone feels. It is measured by what they consistently do. Feelings are important, but effort is what gives those feelings substance. Effort is what turns interest into connection. Effort is what turns affection into trust.

Without effort, words become stories.

With effort, words become reality.

At this stage of my life, I am no longer interested in stories.

I want reality.

I want relationships where words and actions know each other. Where consistency is not rare enough to be mistaken for excellence. Where neither person is left wondering whether they matter.

Because the truth is, effort has never been about perfection.

It has always been about presence.

And the people who genuinely want to be in your life rarely leave you questioning whether they are there.

Finding Faith Through the Fire.

I’m writing this because someone recently trusted me with a chapter of their story that was deeply personal. A chapter that included addiction, but more importantly, recovery. Ever since that conversation, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.

Not because of the addiction itself. Not because of the mistakes. Not because of the substances involved.

What has stayed with me is the redemption.

The courage.

The nearly eight years that followed a decision to build a different life.

Because that’s what sobriety really is. It isn’t one decision. It’s thousands of them. It’s waking up on difficult days and choosing healing anyway. It’s facing stress, disappointment, grief, loneliness, and uncertainty without returning to the thing that once felt like an escape. It’s continuing to choose a future over a temporary relief.

Most people hear “almost eight years sober” and think of a milestone. I hear something entirely different. I hear perseverance. I hear resilience. I hear someone who kept showing up for themselves when it would have been easier not to.

As someone whose life has been profoundly affected by addiction, I don’t hear those words the same way most people do. I hear the quiet victories nobody else sees. The ordinary days that never make the highlight reel. The moments when nobody would have known if a person gave up except the person fighting the battle.

When I hear nearly eight years of sobriety, I don’t hear a number.

I hear proof that change is possible.

I hear someone who refused and continues to refuse to let one chapter define their entire story.

The truth is, addiction has touched my life from more angles than I ever wanted it to. I’ve fought my own battles. I’ve chosen my own recovery. I’ve loved people who found their way out, and I’ve loved people who didn’t. I’ve watched families carry burdens they never expected to carry.

I’ve watched parents lose sleep because they loved their children so deeply. I’ve seen spouses, siblings, children, and friends spend years hoping and praying for healing.

When I found out I was pregnant with my daughter, I made a decision that changed the trajectory of my life. For the first time, my choices didn’t belong solely to me. There was a littlegirl depending on me. A little girl who deserved a mother who was present, healthy, and capable of putting her needs ahead of her own.

So I chose recovery.

Not because it was easy. Not because I suddenly had everything figured out. But because I wanted a different future than the one I was headed toward.

At nearly the same time, I was watching someone else fight a very different battle. I hoped we would somehow arrive at the same destination. I hoped becoming a parent would inspire a different path. I hoped love would be enough.

It wasn’t.

Eventually, I learned one of the hardest lessons addiction can teach. We cannot heal someone else for them.

We can love them. We can encourage them. We can pray for them. We can remind them of their value when they have forgotten it themselves.

But ultimately, recovery is a journey each person must choose for themselves. And sometimes that choice doesn’t begin because someone feels strong.

Sometimes it begins because they are exhausted. Sometimes it begins because they are scared. Sometimes it begins because someone lends them hope until they can find their own.

However it begins, it matters.

That lesson has stayed with me for years.

So have the stories. The stories of families waiting for a breakthrough. The stories of people desperately wanting a different life but not knowing where to start. The stories of loved ones who never stopped believing there was still a better future waiting for someone they cared about.

But there are other stories too.

The recovery stories. The redemption stories. The stories that remind us addiction does not always get the final word.

That is why stories of sobriety affect me so deeply. I have seen what addiction can destroy, but I have also seen what recovery can restore. I’ve seen it restore trust. I’ve seen it restore peace.

I’ve seen it restore purpose. Most importantly, I’ve seen it restore people to themselves.

Maybe that’s what I’ve been struggling to put into words since hearing this particular story.

I’m proud of the person who shared it.Not because they are perfect. Not because their journey was easy. But because I know how difficult change can be.

I know how easy it is to stay stuck in familiar patterns, even when they are hurting us.

What I admire most isn’t perfection. It’s the willingness to keep showing up. To keep doing the work. To keep choosing healing. To keep choosing growth. To refuse to let your worst chapter become your entire identity.

What struck me most wasn’t just what this person had overcome. It was their willingness to talk about it honestly. Recovery stories matter because they give other people permission to believe their own story isn’t over yet. Every person willing to say, “I’ve been there too,“ becomes a light for someone who still feels trapped in the dark.

Recovery is one of the bravest things a person can do.

It asks people to feel things they’ve spent years trying not to feel. It asks them to sit with grief, regret, loneliness, disappointment, fear, and uncertainty without running from it. It asks them to stop numbing and start healing. It asks them to trust that there is something better waiting on the other side of the pain.

That takes courage. Far more courage than most people realize.

If you’re reading this while struggling, I hope you hear the heart behind this letter.

This is not a letter about judgment. It is not a letter about shame. It is not a letter written by someone standing on a mountain looking down at people still climbing. Honestly, in many ways, I’m still climbing too.

This is a letter about hope.

Because no matter how long you’ve been fighting, no matter how many times you’ve stumbled, no matter how impossible change feels today, your story is not finished.

Recovery is rarely a straight line. It is often messy. It is often frustrating. It sometimes includes setbacks, detours, and days that feel impossible. But progress is still progress, and every step forward matters.

You do not have to become a perfect person. You do not have to erase your past. You do not have to prove your worth. You simply have to keep taking the next step.

And if nobody has told you lately, there is still a future worth fighting for.

Your addiction is not your identity. Your mistakes are not your identity. Your worst chapter is not your identity. You are not beyond redemption. You are not beyond grace.

You are not too far gone. I know addiction wants people to believe otherwise. I know shame whispers otherwise. I know there are days when people look in the mirror and struggle to recognize the person staring back at them.

But the people who love you are rarely looking at your life through the lens of your failures.

They’re looking at you through the lens of possibility. They’re seeing the person you are beneath the pain. They’re seeing the person you could still become. They’re seeing someone worth fighting for. Praying you see it too.

Because you are.

You are worth the difficult conversations. You are worth the therapy. You are worth the meetings.

You are worth the support. You are worth the effort it takes to heal. You are worth the life waiting for you on the other side.

Maybe that’s why this letter felt so important to write. Because addiction gets enough headlines. We hear about overdoses. We hear about relapses. We hear about lives falling apart.

But we don’t spend nearly enough time celebrating the people who fought their way back. The people who chose recovery. The people who kept choosing it. The people who became proof that redemption is still possible.

To the person who inspired this letter, I hope you understand something.

When you tell your story, people hear the courage it took to change.

They hear the strength it took to stay.

They hear proof that healing is possible.

And for someone like me, who has spent years loving people trapped in addiction and praying they would choose a different path, there is something incredibly beautiful about meeting someone who did.

Your story isn’t beautiful because it is perfect. It’s beautiful because it is honest. Because it proves that people can change. Because it proves that addiction does not have to be the ending. Because it proves that redemption is still possible.

And somewhere, whether you realize it or not, your story may become the reason someone else decides to keep going. Someone else’s reminder that they are not too far gone. Someone else’s proof that a different ending exists.

There is hope.

There is healing. There is life beyond addiction.

And for anyone who needs to hear it today, including the person who inspired this letter:

You are worth saving.

Lately, I have found myself picking up the phone more than usual. Not because I have answers. Quite the opposite, actually. Most of the time I call because my thoughts are tangled, my emotions are louder than my logic, and I need to say things out loud before I can make sense of them. What starts as a simple “Do you have a minute?” rarely ends there. Somehow it becomes a forty-five minute (or two hour long) conversation about grief, work, parenting, faith, relationships, stress, and whatever else my brain has decided to drag into the discussion that day.

The truth is, I haven’t been the easiest person to love lately.

Grief has a way of rearranging you. Stress does too. There have been days when I’ve repeated the same story three different times because I was still trying to understand it myself. There have been moments when a seemingly minor inconvenience felt catastrophic simply because I was already carrying more than I knew how to hold. There have been conversations where I’ve cried, laughed, gotten angry, changed my mind, and circled back to the original point all within the same twenty minutes.

And somehow, there have been people who sat through all of it.

Not because they had the perfect advice. Not because they knew how to fix what was hurting. Not because they had some magical solution hidden away that would make everything better. They stayed simply because they cared.

I think we underestimate how powerful that is.

When someone is struggling, our instinct is often to fix it. To find an answer. To offer a solution. To make the pain stop. But some things in life can’t be fixed by another person. Grief can’t. Heartbreak can’t. Loss can’t. There are roads we have to walk ourselves, no matter how badly the people who love us wish they could carry us the rest of the way.

What they can do is walk beside us.

They can answer the phone.

They can send the text.

They can sit across from us over coffee and listen while we try to untangle the knot in our chest.

They can remind us that we’re not crazy, not weak, not broken, and not alone.

The last few months have taught me that some of the greatest acts of love are incredibly ordinary. They don’t come with grand gestures or dramatic declarations. They look like someone making time for a conversation when they’re busy. They look like a friend checking in when they know you’ve had a hard week. They look like someone listening to the same concern for the fifth time without making you feel guilty for still struggling with it.

Those moments may seem small, but when you’re carrying something heavy, they become everything.

To the friends who have listened to the word vomit, thank you. Thank you for answering the calls. Thank you for reading the long texts. Thank you for letting me process things in real time instead of expecting me to have it all figured out before I speak. Thank you for giving me space to be human. Thank you for offering grace on the days when I wasn’t at my best.

Most of all, thank you for staying.

Because the older I get, the more I realize that friendship isn’t really measured by who celebrates with you when life is good. It’s measured by who quietly pulls up a chair when life falls apart. It’s measured by who sits in the darkness long enough for you to find your footing again. It’s measured by who continues to show up when there is nothing exciting, easy, or convenient about doing so.

I have learned a lot about loss this year. I have learned a lot about resilience, too. But one of the most important things I’ve learned is that God often places people in our lives to help carry us through seasons we could never survive alone.

And while I may never be able to adequately express what that support has meant to me, I hope the people who have loved me through this season know something very important:

You matter.

More than you’ll ever know.

One of the strangest parts of being human is realizing that every person you meet knows a different version of you.

To some people, you’re the friend who always shows up. To others, you’re the one who disappeared when life got busy. Some people know the version of you that is confident and capable. Others know the version that falls apart behind closed doors. Some remember your kindness. Some remember your mistakes. Some remember the way you made them feel. Some remember the way you made them feel when you were struggling yourself.

The truth is that nobody really gets the entire story without years of sitting with you through every season and moment of your life.

Every person experiences us through the lens of their own circumstances, expectations, wounds, and desires. They take the pieces they were given and build a picture. Sometimes that picture is accurate. Sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes it falls somewhere in between.

For a long time, I believed that if someone misunderstood me, it was my responsibility to fix it. I thought if I could just explain myself better, communicate more clearly, defend my intentions, or provide enough context, people would finally see my heart the way I knew it existed.

What I’ve learned instead is that understanding is not something we can force.

People don’t just see who we are. They see who we are through the filter of their own experiences.

Someone who feels abandoned may interpret distance as rejection.

Someone who feels unseen may interpret exhaustion as indifference.

Someone who is hurting may struggle to recognize that the person standing in front of them is hurting too.

That doesn’t make them wrong. It makes them human.

But it doesn’t make their perception the complete truth either.

I think one of the most difficult things to accept is that there will be seasons of life when you simply do not have the capacity to be everything everyone needs you to be. There will be moments when your own heart is carrying more than it knows what to do with. Moments when grief, loss, responsibility, disappointment, fear, or exhaustion consume so much of your energy that all you can do is focus on surviving the day in front of you.

During those seasons, people may misunderstand you.

They may assume your silence means you don’t care.

They may interpret your boundaries as rejection.

They may mistake your exhaustion for selfishness.

They may believe your inability to give more is evidence that you never wanted to give anything at all.

And if you’re not careful, you’ll start believing those things about yourself too.

You’ll begin questioning your own character because someone else questioned it first.

You’ll start measuring your heart by someone else’s perception of it.

You’ll wonder if perhaps you really are the person they say you are.

But maturity requires something different.

Maturity requires the willingness to honestly examine yourself while also recognizing that not every criticism is an accurate reflection of who you are.

It means being accountable without accepting responsibility for things that were never yours to carry.

It means acknowledging your imperfections without allowing them to become your identity.

It means understanding that someone can be hurt by your actions without their interpretation of your motives becoming fact.

Those things can exist simultaneously.

You can have flaws and still be a good person.

You can make mistakes and still have a good heart.

You can disappoint people and still care deeply about them.

You can be overwhelmed and still be loving.

You can be grieving and still be worthy of grace.

You can be human without becoming the villain in every story that requires one.

I think that’s the lesson I’ve been learning lately.

The people who know me best know that I am not perfect. They know I overthink. They know I sometimes retreat when life becomes too heavy. They know I carry more than I should. They know I don’t always communicate as clearly as I intend to. They know I am capable of getting things wrong.

But they also know how deeply I love.

They know the late-night phone calls, the prayers whispered on behalf of others, the tears shed for people who never knew I was crying for them. They know the effort, the loyalty, the compassion, the second chances, and the endless desire to make sure the people I care about feel supported.

They know that my heart has never been my problem.

My capacity sometimes is.

And there is a difference.

The older I get, the less interested I am in convincing people of who I am. Not because I don’t care, but because I finally understand that my identity cannot be built upon the opinions of others.

People will misunderstand me.

People will project their fears onto me.

People will tell stories about me that make sense from where they are standing.

And they are allowed to.

But their perspective is not my definition.

At some point, we all have to decide whether we trust our own reflection more than the mirrors held up by everyone around us.

I know I have made mistakes.

I know I have fallen short.

I know there are moments I wish I could do differently.

But I also know this:

I am not every painful thing someone has ever called me.

I am not every assumption someone has made about my intentions.

I am not every story written from a place where my heart could not be fully seen.

I am simply a human being doing the best I can with the life I’ve been given.

I’m learning that maybe growth isn’t learning how to make everyone understand you. Maybe the real growth is learning that you can be misunderstood and still remain soft.

I’m learning you can be misjudged and still remain kind.

I’m learning you can be wounded and still remain yourself.

I’m learning to have Faith Through the Fire.

A few days ago, I attended my mother’s celebration of life.

Before I go any further, let me assure you this is not a grief letter. I’ve written enough of those lately to last everyone through at least next Tuesday.

This is a letter about situational awareness.

Or more accurately, the complete lack of it.

If you’ve never planned a funeral before, let me explain how it works. Grieve later. Apparently there are decisions to be made.

Suddenly someone you loved with all your heart and soul passes away and you’re instantly thrown into making decisions about flowers, food, memorial tables, slideshows, seating arrangements, timelines, and approximately four hundred questions nobody warned you would become your responsibility. One minute you’re crying because you miss your mom. The next minute you’re coordinating centerpieces, answering text messages, directing family members, and trying to remember whether the pastor has a microphone. It’s a bizarre experience that somehow requires you to function like a project manager while feeling like a complete disaster.

By the time the service arrived, I had spent weeks planning, organizing, coordinating, comforting, and carrying responsibilities I never wanted in the first place. It was a beautiful day. Friends and family gathered to celebrate a true gem of a human who truly never met a stranger. There were stories, tears, hugs, laughter, and enough food to feed a small army.

Most importantly, it was very obviously a funeral disguised as a “Celebration of Life.”

Same thing. Different marketing.

There was an urn. People were crying. My dad was mourning his wife. I was mourning my mom. Nobody was there because we were playing “The Price is Right.”

Which is why I remain fascinated that someone surveyed the scene and thought, Today seems like an excellent day to ignore a boundary that’s already been communicated.

And before everyone starts trying to connect dots and identify suspects, take a deep breath.

This isn’t about embarrassing anyone.

I don’t believe there was malice behind it.

It just happened to be one of those moments that makes you stop and think, “Have we collectively forgotten how boundaries work?”

The more I replayed it in my head afterward, the more I realized this wasn’t really about one person at all. It’s something I’ve seen over and over again in dating, relationships, friendships, and sometimes just life in general. Somewhere along the way, people started treating boundaries like suggestions and rejection like a problem to solve.

There is a fascinating group of people walking among us that treat rejection the way toddlers treat baby gates.

They don’t see a boundary and think, Well, there’s my answer.

They see a boundary and immediately become curious about what’s on the other side.

A healthy person hears, “I’m not interested,” and thinks, That’s disappointing, but I appreciate the honesty.

These people hear, “I’m not interested,” and think, Interesting. Let’s explore all available options.

A healthy person hears, “No.”

These people hear, I need to try harder.

A healthy person accepts rejection.

These people react the way a toddler reacts when you tell them they can’t have a cookie before dinner.

Suddenly the cookie becomes the most important thing in the world.

Instead of accepting the answer, they start negotiating with it. Maybe you didn’t mean it. Maybe you were having a bad day. Maybe you just need more time. Maybe if they explain themselves differently. Maybe if they try harder. Maybe if they prove they’re worth the effort. Anything feels more acceptable than simply believing what you already said.

Listening skills may also play into this…

But honestly, I don’t know who started this rumor that persistence is always romantic, but I’d like a word with them.

Somewhere along the way, people confused confidence with refusing to accept information.

Movies certainly didn’t help. An entire generation grew up watching romantic comedies where the hero ignored boundaries, chased the girl to the airport, interrupted weddings, stood outside windows, delivered dramatic speeches, and somehow got rewarded for behavior that would get most people blocked today. The message became simple: if someone says no, try harder. If they reject you, fight for them. If they create a boundary, prove you’re worthy enough to cross it.

What a terrible lesson.

Because emotionally healthy people don’t need convincing.

If someone likes you, wonderful.

If they don’t, that’s okay too.

You don’t need a rebuttal.

You don’t need a presentation.

You don’t need to submit a revised proposal.

You simply accept the information and move forward with your dignity intact.

What bothered me most about that moment wasn’t that someone was interested. It wasn’t even that they made their interest known.

It was the assumption behind it.

For reasons I still cannot fully explain, a woman sitting beside her family at her mother’s funeral somehow gave off the impression that what she really needed in that moment was romantic persistence.

To be clear, the signal I thought I was sending was exhaustion, grief, stress, responsibility, and a desperate desire to make it through the day without ugly crying in front of several hundred people.

Apparently that got lost in translation.

And maybe that’s what stuck with me.

Not the action itself.

The inability to read the room.

The inability to recognize that not every moment is about what we want.

The inability to accept that another person’s boundary is not an invitation to negotiate.

The older I get, the more I realize that reading the room is really just another form of empathy. It’s the ability to recognize that other people are having experiences that have absolutely nothing to do with us. It’s understanding that our wants are not always the most important thing happening in a given moment.

Reading the room means understanding that timing matters. Context matters. Boundaries matter. Other people matter.

It means recognizing when someone needs your presence, not your agenda.

It means knowing when to step forward and when to step back.

It means understanding that just because you want something doesn’t mean another person is obligated to accommodate it.

And honestly, the people who possess that skill stand out more and more these days.

The people who can hear “no” and respect it.

The people who don’t need to negotiate boundaries.

The people who don’t treat rejection like a scavenger hunt.

The people who understand that confidence isn’t changing someone’s answer.

Confidence is accepting it.

So perhaps the lesson here is simple.

Not every boundary is a challenge.

Not every rejection is a puzzle.

Not every closed door is waiting for you to knock harder.

Sometimes people really do mean exactly what they say.

And sometimes, if the room contains an urn, a pastor, grieving family members, memorial photos, and enough tissues to stock a small pharmacy, the answer is not to shoot your shot.

The answer is to simply read the room.

A few weeks ago, someone told me I was one of the strongest women they knew.

I smiled, thanked them, and moved on with the conversation because that’s generally what you’re supposed to do when someone gives you a compliment. You don’t argue with them. You don’t ask them to provide examples. You certainly don’t launch into a detailed explanation of why you’re not actually as put together as they think you are. You say thank you and continue on with your day.

But for some reason, it stuck with me.

A few nights later, I was cleaning the kitchen. Or at least attempting to. If you also have ADHD, then you already know where this is going. I started by cleaning off the table, noticed something on the counter that needed to be put away, remembered I needed to order something for a project, grabbed my phone so I wouldn’t forget, saw an email I hadn’t responded to, remembered something else I needed to add to my calendar, walked into another room to grab a charger, and somehow ended up back in the kitchen cleaning a section of counter I had already started to clean twenty minutes earlier.

Meanwhile, my brain was doing what it always does. Running through tomorrow’s schedule. Thinking about work. Thinking about the kids. Thinking about things that needed organized, things that needed planned, things that needed followed up on, and things I was probably forgetting altogether. It felt like there were a hundred tabs open in my brain, all playing different music.

Somewhere in the middle of that chaos, I found myself thinking about what that person had said.

“You’re one of the strongest women I know.”

My first reaction was to laugh because at that exact moment I didn’t feel strong. I was grieving my mothers passing. Planning her funeral service. Handling “eleventy billion” tasks that I had no idea how to actually accomplish. I felt overstimulated. I felt distracted. I felt like a woman standing in the middle of her kitchen wondering why nobody warned us that being an adult mostly consists of managing an endless series of responsibilities while trying to remember where you put your now cold coffee.

Almost daily, I find myself asking, “where’s the adultier adult?” Turns out, I’m usually it…Whoever decided I was qualified for that role may want to reevaluate their decision…

The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that maybe I’ve always had the wrong definition of strength.

For most of my life, whenever someone called me strong, my mind immediately went to the hard things. The losses. The heartbreaks. The setbacks. The disappointments. The seasons that required me to dig deep and somehow keep moving forward when standing still would’ve been easier. I associated strength with survival.

What I never considered was that maybe strength isn’t found only in the major moments of life. Maybe it’s found in the ordinary moments too.

Maybe strength looks like getting up every day and carrying responsibilities that nobody else sees. Maybe it looks like managing the mental load of a household, a business, children, relationships, friendships, appointments, deadlines, and obligations without completely losing your mind. Maybe strength isn’t always surviving the storm. Maybe sometimes it’s simply remembering to keep steering the ship while everyone else is enjoying the cruise.

I think women, especially mothers, are terrible at giving themselves credit for this.

We’re constantly focused on what still needs to be done. We finish one task and immediately move on to the next. We solve one problem and start planning for the next potential problem before it even exists. We spend so much time looking ahead that we rarely stop to acknowledge everything we’ve already accomplished.

I’m guilty of that.

If you ask me how my business is doing, I’ll tell you what I still want to improve. If you compliment my kids, I’ll immediately think about the areas where I wish I were a better mom. If you tell me I’ve accomplished a lot, my brain automatically creates a list of things I haven’t accomplished yet.

It’s almost as if we’re afraid that acknowledging our own growth somehow means we’ve stopped growing.

The reality is that when I look back over my life, there are plenty of things I’m proud of. Not because I did them perfectly. Most of the time I was figuring things out as I went. Not because every season was graceful. Some seasons were downright ugly. And certainly not because my faith was always unwavering. God and I have had some very honest conversations over the years.

What I’m proud of is that I kept going.

I kept showing up.

I kept rebuilding.

I kept trying.

There were seasons where I had no idea what I was doing. Seasons where I questioned myself. Seasons where I questioned God. Seasons where I was exhausted, overwhelmed, heartbroken, frustrated, or scared. My current season is honestly a season of “WTF.” But there have also been seasons where I laughed until I cried, built things I never thought possible, watched my children grow into incredible humans, and experienced blessings I never saw coming.

That’s life.

It’s messy and beautiful and exhausting and wonderful all at the same time.

Maybe that’s why the compliment stayed with me.

Not because I suddenly believe I’m some extraordinary woman with superhuman abilities. Trust me, I’m not. Just ask the numerous piles of laundry currently waiting to be washed, dried and folded.

But for the first time, I stopped hearing the word strong as a reminder of everything I’ve been through and started hearing it as recognition of everything I’ve built despite it.

And honestly?

I’m okay with that.

Because being strong isn’t always fun. Sometimes it’s exhausting. Sometimes it’s frustrating. Sometimes I’d happily trade a little resilience for a little less character development.

I’ve spent so many years navigating chaos that calm can feel strangely unfamiliar. Which may or may not explain why I own a 160-pound Cane Corso named Goose who occasionally resembles a small house horse and creates enough chaos to keep me humble.

The older I get, the more I realize strength doesn’t always look the way I thought it would. Sometimes it looks like surviving the big things. Sometimes it looks like managing the hundred little things. Sometimes it looks like cleaning the same counter three times because you got distracted halfway through. And sometimes it looks like choosing joy, laughter, and a house horse when life gives you every reason to become cynical.

When I look around at my life, I like the woman that strength created.

I like her grit.

I like her determination.

I like that she keeps showing up.

I like that she still believes good things are ahead.

Most of all, I like that no matter what life has placed in front of her, she has found a way through it.

So maybe that person was right.

Maybe I am one of the strongest women they know.

Not because I never struggle.

Not because I have it all together.

But because life hands me hard things, and every time it does, I find a way forward. I make a conscious decision not to let the hard things define me. Sometimes that way forward looks like faith. Sometimes it looks like stubbornness. Most of the time it looks like repeating, “I can do hard things,” whether I believe it in that moment or not.

And at the end of the day, that’s what I’ve done. I’ve taken the hard things, the messy things, the unexpected things, and I’ve continued building anyway.

Maybe strength isn’t just surviving the hard things. Maybe it’s continuing to build a beautiful life despite the hard things and being grateful for the people who remind you of your strength when you’ve gotten so used to carrying it that you hardly notice it anymore.

Today is your birthday.

And I still can’t quite wrap my head around the fact that you’re not here.

I keep thinking about all the birthdays that came before this one.

The phone calls.

The cakes.

The gifts.

The text messages.

The simple comfort of knowing you were somewhere in the world, just a phone call away.

I think that’s what grief keeps teaching me.

It’s not always the big things you miss.

It’s the certainty.

The certainty that Mom is there.

The certainty that if something wonderful happened, you’d be excited with me.

The certainty that if something terrible happened, you’d answer the phone.

The certainty that no matter how old I got, I was still somebody’s baby girl.

Today is your birthday.

And somehow we’re celebrating your life instead.

I still don’t know what to do with that.

Because if I’m being honest, there are days when this still feels impossible.

Days when I think I should be able to call you.

Days when I catch myself reaching for my phone.

Days when I see something funny and immediately think, Mom would love this.

Days when I forget.

And then remember.

And it hurts all over again.

I wasn’t ready.

I don’t know if there ever would have been a version of this where I was ready.

But I really wasn’t.

There were still things I wanted to tell you.

Still things I wanted to ask.

Still memories I thought we had time to make.

I thought there would be more birthdays.

More holidays.

More coffee dates.

More random phone calls that somehow lasted an hour or sometimes three.

I thought there would be more time.

I think that’s the sentence grief keeps writing across my heart.

I thought there would be more time.

The thing about losing someone like you is that your absence is everywhere.

It’s in the stories I can’t wait to tell you.

It’s in the questions I still have.

It’s in watching Dad navigate a world that suddenly feels quieter.

It’s in the grandchildren who adored their Nana.

It’s in every room where your laughter should be.

It’s in every ordinary moment that doesn’t feel quite as ordinary anymore.

And yet somehow, you’re still everywhere too.

You’re in the way I love my children.

You’re in the way I stop and talk to strangers.

You’re in the way I show up for people.

You’re in the stories we tell.

You’re in the memories that make us laugh so hard we cry.

You’re in the lessons you taught without ever realizing you were teaching them.

Maybe that’s the strange thing about love.

Death can take a person.

But it can’t take what they planted.

And Mama, you planted so much.

So today hurts.

Today feels unfair.

Today I would give anything for one more hug, one more conversation, one more chance to hear your voice.

But today is also your birthday.

And maybe that’s why I keep coming back to this thought:

For all the years we’ve celebrated the day you were born, this is the first year we’re celebrating something else too.

Not just the day you entered this world.

But the day you entered heaven.

The day your faith became sight.

The day you met the Jesus you spent your life loving.

The day every struggle ended.

The day every question was answered.

The day you were made completely whole.

As much as my heart wishes you were here with us, I can’t help but wonder if heaven is celebrating too.

Maybe today isn’t only a birthday.

Maybe it’s a homecoming.

A rebirth.

The beginning of eternal life exactly as God promised.

And while we’re grieving the loss of you, heaven is rejoicing in the gift of you.

What a strange thing it is to hold both sorrow and hope at the same time.

To ache because you’re gone and yet feel peace knowing exactly where you are.

So today we celebrate both.

The life you lived here.

And the life you’re living now.

The woman who became my mother.

The woman who became Nana to seventeen grandchildren.

The woman who loved Dad with her whole heart.

The woman who never met a stranger.

The woman who made people feel seen.

The woman who made this world better simply by being in it.

Happy Birthday, Mama.

Today we celebrate the day you were born.

And we celebrate the life you’ve begun in heaven.

I miss you more than words can say.

I wish we had more time.

But until I see you again, I’ll keep telling your stories, loving my people well, and carrying you with me everywhere I go.

I love you forever.

I love you to the moon and back.

Nobody tells you how administrative death is.

Nobody tells you grief comes with paperwork, phone calls, catering counts, floral decisions, obituary edits, photo boards, songs to choose, outfits to find, legal documents… “eleventy-billion” tasks to accomplish and twenty-seven people asking you questions while your brain feels like it’s underwater.

Nobody tells you that somehow the world still expects you to answer emails professionally while your mother’s favorite sweater is still hanging on the back of a chair somewhere.

I have spent the last several days planning my own mother’s celebration of life while simultaneously trying to keep my business running, make sure my children feel safe through all of this, respond to clients, remember deadlines, feed people, feed myself, and act like my entire nervous system is not collapsing in slow motion.

And the strange part is... life does not pause for grief.

The trash still has to go out.
Kids still need rides.
Clients still need answers.
Laundry still piles up.
People still ask, “Just checking in on this.”
Your phone still rings.

You try to pick centerpieces with your grieving father while both of you are attempting to hold yourselves together in the middle of a conversation neither of you should ever have to be having.

And there’s something absolutely devastating about watching the man who loved her most try to figure out how to honor her while his heart is breaking right in front of you.

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It’s been barely over two weeks.

Two weeks since I watched the EMTs trying to save my mom.

Two weeks since I stood there begging God for a different ending.

Two weeks since I watched the strongest, kindest, safest person I have ever known stop breathing while the world around me blurred into absolute chaos.

And somehow… Monday still came anyway.

That feels impossible to me.

The sun still rose this morning.

People still drove to work.

Coffee shops still opened.

Kids still got dropped off at school.

The grocery store still stocked shelves.

Emails still showed up in my inbox asking for things that suddenly feel so unbelievably meaningless.

Meanwhile my entire world feels like it ended in one single moment.

I keep thinking there should be some visible sign to the rest of the world that this happened. Like the sky should look different. Like people should speak quieter. Like life itself should pause out of respect for the kind of loss that splits a human being in half.

But it doesn’t.

Life keeps moving with this cruel, unbearable normalcy.

And I think that’s what shocks me most.

Not just losing my mom… but realizing the world continues afterward.

People prepare you for funerals.

They prepare you for obituaries and flowers and sympathy cards and casseroles.

Nobody prepares you for the Mondays afterward.

The painfully ordinary days where grief becomes less public and more personal.

The days where everyone slowly returns to their routines while you are still waking up in survival mode.

I replay that day constantly.

The panic.

The confusion.

The sounds.

The EMTs moving quickly around her while I stood there feeling completely helpless.

There is something deeply traumatic about watching people try to save someone you love while realizing there is nothing you can do except pray.

And when it’s over… your body doesn’t just forget that.

People think grief lives in your heart.

But trauma lives in your nervous system.

It lives in the tightness in your chest when your phone rings unexpectedly.

In the exhaustion that sleep does not fix.

In the moments where your brain replays everything against your will while you’re trying to do something simple like fold laundry or stand in line at Target.

I still catch myself wanting to call her.

That instinct has not left me yet.

I’ll see something funny and think, “I need to tell Mom.”

Something good happens and she’s still the first person I want to call.

Something hard happens and my body still reaches for the comfort of her before my brain catches up to reality.

And then it hits me all over again.

She’s gone.

Not busy.

Not unavailable.

Gone.

That realization hurts fresh every single time.

Because she wasn’t just my mom.

She was my best friend.

She was the person who knew me before the world hardened me. The person who could hear something was wrong in my voice before I even admitted it to myself. The person who loved me in that unconditional, sacred way only mothers can.

She knew all versions of me.

The little girl.

The struggling version.

The strong version.

The broken version.

And somehow she loved every single one.

There is no replacing a person like that.

People say things like, “She’ll always be with you,” and I know they mean well. I know they’re trying to comfort me.

But right now, if I’m honest, I don’t want poetic grief language.

I want my mom.

I want one more phone call.

One more hug.

One more ordinary conversation.

One more chance to hear her laugh without knowing what was coming.

I think that’s the hardest part of loss… realizing there was a final normal moment and you didn’t know it was the last one.

If I had known, I would have held onto everything longer.

Now I move through my days feeling like two separate people.

There’s the version of me answering texts and taking care of responsibilities and trying to function like a normal human being.

And underneath that is the daughter who is still standing there watching the EMTs trying to bring her mom back.

I don’t know how both versions of me exist at the same time, but somehow they do.

And maybe that’s what early grief really is.

Not acceptance.

Not healing.

Just survival.

Minute by minute.

Task by task.

Breath by breath.

Some moments I feel completely numb.

Other moments the grief hits so hard it physically takes the air out of my lungs. A song. A smell. A random memory. Someone mentioning their mom casually in conversation.

Suddenly I am right back inside the heartbreak all over again.

I have realized grief is not linear at all.

It is waves.

Sometimes gentle.

Sometimes violent enough to pull you completely under.

And right now, I still feel like I’m drowning more often than floating.

But somewhere underneath all of this pain, there is also love.

Massive love.

The kind of love that does not disappear just because someone dies.

Because I see her everywhere now.

In the way I comfort my children.

In the phrases I say without realizing they were hers first.

In the softness she taught me to carry in a world that often rewards hardness.

In my sense of humor.

In my strength.

In the parts of me she built over an entire lifetime of being my mother.

She left fingerprints on my soul that death cannot erase.

And maybe that’s the unbearable beauty of grief.

The pain exists because the love was real.

Because to lose someone this deeply means I was lucky enough to have someone worth grieving this much in the first place.

Still… I won’t pretend I’m okay.

I’m not.

I am heartbroken.

I am exhausted.

I am trying to understand how to exist in a world that no longer has my mom in it.

And right now, Monday feels impossible.

But I got out of bed anyway.

I kept breathing anyway.

I kept going anyway.

Not because I’m strong.

Not because I’m healed.

But because grief does not give you a choice.

Life keeps moving.

And somehow… painfully… so do we.

This is the first Mother’s Day where the world still turns somehow… and you are not in it.

I keep staring at that sentence like maybe if I read it enough times it’ll stop feeling impossible. But it doesn’t. It just keeps sounding wrong.

Nothing prepares you for becoming the person who has to live without their mother.

People say grief comes in waves, but this feels more like learning how to breathe underwater. Some moments I’m okay enough to answer a text or fold laundry or laugh at something silly the kids say… and then out of nowhere, I remember you’re gone and it feels like someone dropped an anchor straight into my chest.

I miss you in all the quiet places.

I miss calling you about absolutely nothing. I miss your voice saying my name. I miss your laugh… the real one… the one that made everybody else laugh too. I miss how you loved people so naturally. You made kindness look effortless. You were the safest place I ever knew.

And the hardest part is knowing the world still gets to keep moving while ours stopped.

I keep catching myself thinking, I need to tell Mom that.

Then remembering.

I think that’s what grief really is… a thousand tiny moments where love has nowhere earthly to go… I keep saying that and have to remind myself the love is still real, and forever will be.

You were so much more than “Mom.” You were warmth. You were comfort. You were the person who remembered birthdays and checked on everyone else even when you were tired yourself. You loved deeply… without conditions, without keeping score. You made people feel important. Seen. Safe.

I don’t think you ever fully understood how extraordinary that was.

The truth is… I don’t know how to do this yet. I don’t know how to exist in a world where I can’t hug you. I don’t know how to walk through holidays without hearing your voice somewhere in the background. I don’t know how to explain to my heart that heaven was allowed to take you so soon.

But I do know this…

You loved me SO well.

And that kind of love changes a person forever.

I see pieces of you in everything now. In flowers. In painted skies. In the way I love my children. In softness. In Sunday mornings. In every moment where kindness still exists in this hard world.

You left fingerprints on all of us.

I hope you know how adored you were here. I hope you knew it every single day.

And if heaven allows visitors in the form of little signs… I think maybe you’ve already been sending them.

I’ll spend the rest of my life missing you… but I’ll also spend it carrying you.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mama.

I love you beyond words.

Beyond loss.

Beyond this life.

I love you to the moon and the heavens and back. Forever and always.