(An Unsent Letter to My Daughter)

September 2024

Dear Daughter,

I never imagined our story would end like this, with a goodbye text, no conversation, and no chance to be heard. It left me wondering how we got here. I didn’t agree with what you said, and some parts were difficult to take in. But over time, I began to see it in a new light, not as a closed door but as an opportunity for understanding. Maybe even a first small step toward finding our way back to each other.

Before I go any further, I want to encourage you to look up the term Stockholm Syndrome. I was once in a similar place, though I didn’t recognize it at the time. Years later, when I finally came to understand what it meant, it helped me make sense of patterns in my life that had once felt confusing or impossible to explain. My hope is that, when the time is right, this term might offer you some of that same clarity.

If I’m being honest, the text you sent didn’t sound like you. It didn’t carry your usual warmth, your humor, your spirit. No abbreviations. No emojis. Even calling me by my first name - you’ve never done that before. And it wasn’t just the tone. The message was unusually long. You’ve always texted me like a typical teenager, short, casual, a little messy, full of charm. It felt unsettling because, it seemed like a version of you that was distant, almost hollow, as if your voice had been replaced by someone else’s narrative. More than anything, I want you to be free. Free to feel, to question, to reclaim your voice, your truth, your inner compass.

For the past eleven years, I’ve done everything I could to remain a part of your life, within the limits of what was safe given the circumstances. I reached out regularly, offered help, and tried to create moments of connection whenever possible, even in small ways. Many of those gestures were turned down, often without explanation. So to be told now that I haven’t been there for you was disorienting. I found myself wondering was it possible my efforts didn’t come through the way I hoped they would? That what I offered didn’t feel like what you needed at the time? Still, from where I stood, my door was always open to you and your brothers, and my heart never stopped hoping for closeness.

Despite everything, I did my best to care for you and your brothers. Co-parenting in an environment where my role as a mother was constantly undermined required a kind of strength I never expected to need. There is so much you couldn’t have known from the outside. My hope is that, as you grow, you will find the courage to stand with those who have been unseen, not those who overlook them. To choose compassion, even when it is not easy. Now that you are an adult, I hope you will take full ownership of your path, including the ability to reflect on your own thoughts, choices, and beliefs. That is part of what it means to grow into yourself.

I remember a few years ago, on our first Mother’s Day together in almost a decade, you asked me, “Mom, why don’t you just live closer?” You were genuinely curious, and I could feel how much you wanted us to be near each other again. I wanted that too, probably more than you knew. But whenever I tried to explain why living nearby wasn’t an option, you would say I was “badmouthing” your dad. That made it hard to share the truth in a way that felt safe or heard. And yet, how can you truly understand what happened if I am not allowed to speak openly? I am writing this now because there are things you deserve to know, things that may not have been visible to you at the time.

There was so much you couldn’t have known, because whenever I saw you, I tried to look happy, pulled together, and make things fun and light for you, to protect you from the heaviness we had been through and to offer something brighter in the time we had together. You didn’t see what I was navigating behind the scenes, the toll it took on my mind, body, and spirit. You didn’t see the sleepless nights, the trauma symptoms, or the stress-related illnesses that became part of my daily life. You didn’t see how the financial strain slowly eroded everything I had built, or how the ongoing legal battles drained the resources I once relied on to care for us. You didn’t see the moments I broke down, or the strength it took to keep going, often without support.

There’s something I’ve never shared with anyone. That first year I was away from you, living with Grandma in New York, was one of the hardest times in my life. I missed you and your brothers so deeply it was hard to focus on anything else. There was a public school just down the block from Grandma’s house, and every afternoon around two thirty, I would walk by it, knowing that was the time you’d be getting out of school. Sometimes I would imagine I was there to pick you up. I would picture your faces, your backpacks, your hugs. I did that nearly every school day for a year. I didn’t tell anyone, not even my therapist because I did not want them to think I was a cuckoo bird. But it was the only way I knew to feel close to you when everything else felt so far away. Even when I couldn’t be there, I was thinking of you. Every single day.

A few years ago, I moved back to California, hoping that being closer might help rebuild something between us. But stability kept slipping through my fingers. This past year alone, I moved four times. Month to month leases were all I could afford. In between, I put my things in storage, living out of boxes and suitcases, moving more than I ever thought I could. I was exhausted in every way a person can be tired. Still, nothing prepared me for that message. Not even years of constant upheaval.

For ten years, I held onto hope. The kind of hope that stays with you quietly in the background. I thought that once the court orders ended, once you all turned eighteen and the legal weight lifted, we might find our way back to each other. Not perfectly. Not all at once. But maybe slowly, over time, with space for a real conversation. Instead, what I got was a goodbye in a text message. And with it came a kind of grief I didn’t expect, not just for what was lost, but for what was never given the chance to become.

This past year alone, before your message, I reached out again to offer help with your move, hoping to spend time together, just trying to stay connected. Each time, I was either turned away or met with silence. Just a month before your last message, we had celebrated your brother’s birthday together. We smiled. We laughed. During that visit, you picked up my phone and I did not ask why, I just let you. I trusted you. Later, I saw that you had sent yourself photos of us from the past ten years—pictures from vacations, shared memories, moments of joy. It caught me off guard in the best way. I felt a warm rush of hope, like maybe those memories meant something to you too. It touched me more than I can say. So when the message came just a few weeks later, telling me you did not want to continue contact and that we had a “falling out,” I was stunned. I felt confused and heartbroken. How do you go from searching for precious memories of us to cutting off connection completely?

I began to realize over time that the more I tried to be present in your lives, the more it felt like your father was working behind the scenes to create distance between us. Not always in obvious ways, but through patterns that accumulated over the years. It was not just challenging. It slowly wore me down, emotionally and mentally. That is why, after a while, I made the painful choice to step back. Not because I stopped caring, but because continuing to try under those conditions began to feel like it was causing more harm than good. At some point, the most peaceful and loving thing I could do was to stop engaging in the conflict.

I missed so many years of your life, and I have carried that grief in my heart. But through it all, I never stopped loving you. Even in the most painful moments, that love was the thread that held me together. Despite everything we have been through, I still know who you are. A beautiful, precious soul. The daughter I remember is kind, loving, radiant, and thoughtful. You lit up every room and brought joy to our family in ways only you could.

The version of you who sent that message, distant and detached, didn’t feel like the real you. It felt like a shadow, shaped by pain that neither of us were meant to carry and by circumstances we never asked for. But I still believe in you. No matter how far apart we are, no matter how much time passes, I will always hold the truth of who you are in my heart.

Love, Mom