Today was Day Five.
There were fewer tears today. In fact, I almost made it through the day without crying at all. The tears only came when my mind drifted toward thoughts of endings … toward the reality that I have closed the door on my father, and in doing so, on the family I came from.
I tried to stay busy. I occupied my hands and my mind. But grief has a way of slipping through the cracks. It arrives quietly, carried by a memory, a photograph, or a thought that refuses to stay buried.
Today it arrived through an old picture.
I was about six or seven years old. My little brother stood nearby, looking away from the camera as he often did, his attention always drifting elsewhere. My mother and father stood behind us, along with a relative. I was standing directly in front of my father, his hands resting on my shoulders. Looking back, I suspect he was trying to keep me still because I probably didn’t want to be taking pictures in the first place.
I vaguely remember the day.
It was after church. I hated lingering after church while my parents stopped to talk and mingle. I was always ready to go home. Sometimes I would ask to sit in the car just to escape the crowds. Other times I would lean against the car and watch everyone from a distance.
On this day, I think we were headed to the car when someone stopped us and suggested a picture. The relative who was with us loved to talk as much as my parents did, so there we stood, gathered together for a photograph.
I remember the expression on my face. It was a look of impatience and awkwardness. I wasn’t smiling. I wasn’t posing. I was simply waiting for the moment to end.
My mother looked beautiful.
She always did.
Her beauty was often talked about in our community. She was one of those women who could walk into a room and immediately draw attention without trying. I did not inherit her looks, but I did inherit her sense of style. She could take the simplest pieces of clothing and make them look elegant.
My father stood beside her.
I have always thought I resembled him more, although even that feels uncertain. Sometimes I look at family photographs and feel as though I don’t fully resemble anyone. As if I belonged there but never quite fit.
I was dressed in a red trench coat, a plaid skirt, and little girlish socks. My mother loved red, and she often dressed us in it. My brother was wearing red too. It must have been cold because all of us wore coats.
I held onto that image for a long time today.
And then my mind drifted to another memory. It was the final conversation I had with my father before I went no contact.
I told him I would not be speaking to him for a long while.
I reminded him about Abraham leaving his family and journeying toward the place God had prepared for him. I explained that sometimes obedience requires separation. Sometimes a person must leave what is familiar in order to become who they were meant to be.
My father listened.
There was a silence between us that I remember more clearly than the words themselves. We both knew this separation was clearly not about me physically moving away. I already live far enough away.
In that silence, I could feel him searching. Trying to understand. Trying to determine whether he had done something wrong.
And it was in that moment that I realized something important.
Maybe he truly didn’t remember.
Maybe he couldn’t face certain truths.
Maybe he saw our history differently than I did.
And strangely enough, that realization brought me peace.
Because in that moment, I forgave him.
I forgave him and I forgave my mother.
Forgiveness, however, did not mean I could continue living inside a system that was hurting me.
I could love them and still leave.
I could forgive them and still choose distance.
I could wish them well and still refuse to remain trapped inside dysfunction.
The silence continued.
Part of me wanted to hold onto it forever because I knew what it meant.
I knew that once the call ended, a door would close behind me.
Then my father said something I will probably remember for the rest of my life.
“You’ve always done what you felt led to do. If this is what you’re being led to do, then I’ll have to deal with it. I’ll support it. It’s okay. You don’t have to worry about me.”
Maybe it was his way of letting me go.
Maybe it was his way of giving me permission to be free.
Or maybe it was simply the only thing left to say.
Before we ended the conversation, I told him I loved him and always would.
He said he believed me.
Then he told me he loved me too.
And that was it.
The conversation ended with ordinary words spoken on an extraordinary day.
It sounded almost as though we would talk again tomorrow.
But we both knew this was different.
At least I knew.
I have always been a person who follows through when I make a decision. Once I said the words, I knew the door had closed.
My mother and brother were different.
Those doors closed in silence.
There was no conversation because there was no space for one. Too often, my attempts to communicate were met with denial, defensiveness, interruptions, or dismissal. There was no room for my experience to exist alongside theirs.
So I left quietly.
Looking back, I realize that many of the friendships I ended throughout my life followed similar patterns. Some people could hear difficult truths, and with them I spoke my goodbye. Others could not hear me at all, and with them I disappeared silently.
Today I reflected on all of it.
The photograph.
The phone call.
The silence.
The doors.
I reflected on what might have been if things had been different.
But I also reflected on what actually was.
And those are not always the same thing.
What remains true is this:
I love my family.
I will probably love them for the rest of my life.
But love does not give me the power to change them.
Just as I do not want them controlling my life, I cannot control theirs.
So I have released them.
I have placed them into God’s hands.
The hands that created them are far more capable of carrying them than mine ever were.
Perhaps this separation was not only about letting them go.
Perhaps it was also about finally releasing myself.
Day Five leaves me with sadness, but it also leaves me with acceptance.
I know this grief is not going away anytime soon.
It may soften.
It may change shape.
The tears may become less frequent.
But I suspect I will carry some version of this grief for a very long time.
This is different from every other no-contact decision I have ever made.
I have grieved friendships.
I have grieved relationships.
I have grieved people who once mattered deeply to me.
But this feels like something else.
It feels like the closing of a chapter that began before I could speak, before I could choose, before I even understood who I was.
It feels like a finality.
And yet, even in that finality, life continues.
So I carry the memories.
I carry the love.
I carry the sadness.
And I continue forward.
My Voice Unchained 