A Daughter's Love: Where Healing Began.

Before I begin sharing my recent journey, a little background…

Our backyard cornfield view.

I grew up in a tiny village in Illinois, surrounded by cornfields, in a simple home with my mother, father, and older brother. Looking back, my childhood felt complicated. For years, I carried resentment; I couldn’t seem to remember joy — only struggle. That became the story I told myself.

At 24, I moved out of state with my husband and infant daughter, determined to live a bigger, happier life than my parents. I told myself distance was healthy. My mom battled sadness and depression, and staying away felt safer. We still saw each other — holidays, summer visits — but life got busier, and travel harder.

My mom and I have always loved each other deeply, but expressing what we needed from one another was hard. Sometimes it ended with slammed phones or the good old Facebook block (I cringe now, but it felt so justified then).

Fast forward to 2024. I was divorced, remarried, living in Colorado — away from my adult children. I was deep into counseling and healing old wounds. Meanwhile, my dad’s dementia had been slowly progressing for a decade, and Mom was carrying more than she could alone. One day, I finally heard the exhaustion in her voice.

Something shifted. I started giving her more grace. Then one day, on the phone, I found myself apologizing for how I’d treated her. I was sobbing — I’d just hurt my own daughter and suddenly saw our whole dynamic with new eyes. Mom cut me off mid-apology:

“We’re not looking back on any of that,” she said. “I’m here for you now. I love you.”

I came home and cried happy tears. That one sentence healed something deep in me — something I’d been waiting to hear my whole life.

Only months later, she called with news: she needed open-heart surgery. And that’s where the true journey of love, heartache, and healing began…

Looking back, I can see how God was gently stitching together pieces of my heart I didn’t know were broken. That phone call with my mom — the one where she said we weren’t looking back — felt like the first deep breath after years of holding it in. It was proof that grace can rewrite even the hardest stories. As I begin sharing the road ahead — the caregiving, the healing, the love that grew stronger than the pain — I hold onto the promise that

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” (Psalm 147:3)

My prayer is that, somehow, this space becomes a place of hope for anyone longing for healing too.

All my love,

Joy