(this is the version of us I never knew I’d get to have)

There was a time when I didn’t know what our relationship would look like as adults.
I had my guard up.
Not because I didn’t love you, but because I didn’t feel safe being fully honest.
So I kept my distance for a while.
But I’ve let that go. And I want you to know that.

Because what I see now (especially this past year) is a woman who is growing in ways that continue to surprise and inspire me.
You’ve changed. You’re choosing. You’re softening.
And I know that’s not easy.

Since losing Dad, you’ve had to remake a life.
And you’ve done it with quiet courage, even in the grief.
I see the way you wake up each day and try again.
The way you’re letting yourself try new things, enjoy new experiences, and create a life that belongs to you, not just the one you were handed.
That is strength.

There were things I had to work through from my childhood.
Some of them were hard.
Some of them left marks I didn’t fully understand until much later.
And while I don’t want this letter to be about pain, I do want to be honest:

We were both raised in a system,    in a religion where it felt like we had to be perfect.
That how we looked mattered more than how we felt.
And if that pressure was heavy on me, I can only imagine how much heavier it was on you,
trying to keep a family together while living under a microscope.
As the pastor’s wife, you were expected to be everything to everyone.
Strong. Composed. Untouchable.
There was no room to unravel.
No space to just be.

But all of that, the pressure, the perfectionism, the watching.
It shaped how we related to each other, too.

There were times I didn’t feel seen.
Times I didn’t know how to reach you.
Times I didn’t feel emotionally safe.

I see now that you were under a kind of pressure I couldn’t fully grasp back then.
And that makes your strength even more clear to me now.

I see that so much of what shaped our relationship wasn’t about you not loving me,
it was about everything you were carrying.
The pressure.
The expectations.
The constant need to hold it all together.

You were doing your best.
You were raising us in a world you were still trying to figure out yourself.
You left your home country.
You raised three children in a culture you hadn’t grown up in.
You carried your own childhood, your own wound, and still, you kept going.

I know now that it wasn’t easy.
And I know that love was always behind everything you did, even when I didn’t understand it at the time.

And I’m proud of you.

I’m proud of your strength.
I’m proud of your tenderness.
I’m proud of how you’ve opened your heart, especially in this past year, to see your children more clearly, and let us see you, too.
I’m proud of our conversations now.
Of the way we can reflect together.
Of how you’re willing to look back at where we came from and still imagine what’s ahead.
I know how much strength it takes to keep growing, to stay open, to keep learning, to live with more intention than before.
You’re showing me that growth doesn’t stop. That softness is strength. And that healing is still possible even now.

I’m grateful for so many things you gave me, things I carry every day.

You gave me a love of learning.
You sparked my curiosity.
You taught me to find beauty in everything.
You helped me fall in love with art, with adventure, with creativity.
You pushed me to be better, and even when I didn’t understand it then, I do now:
You just wanted me to reach my potential.

You showed me strength and softness.
How to survive.
How to be compassionate.
How to keep going, even when no one sees how much it takes.

Even now, you’re still teaching me.

I hope you begin to see yourself the way I see you.
I hope you recognize how far you’ve come.
How strong you are.
How much life still waits to be lived and how deserving you are of joy.

I hope you keep choosing yourself.
That you keep laughing.
That you keep saying yes to things just because they make you feel good.
That you keep becoming more of who you are.

And I hope you keep living  not to erase Dad’s memory, but to carry him forward.
To live in the way he would have wanted you to.
With courage.
With softness.
With presence.
With a heart full of everything he gave you, and everything he left behind in all of us.

I love you.
And I see you now ,
not just as my mother,
but as a whole woman who is still becoming.

And I’m so, so proud of her.

Love,

Anita