Bear with me. I’ve been holding a lot lately and unpacking just as much.
My oldest is about to graduate, and I don’t think I was fully prepared for what that would stir up in me. It’s not just excitement or pride. It’s this aching feeling that sits right beneath the surface. The kind that shows up when you realize a season is ending, whether you’re ready or not.
At the same time, I’ve been developing a new character for a book. In trying to understand her, I’ve been reading and researching adults who were emotionally neglected as children.
And those two things together?
They have been a lot.
Because somewhere in the middle of all that reading and imagining, something personal started rising to the surface. Feelings I didn’t plan to revisit. Questions I didn’t mean to ask.
I’ve been sitting with the reality that some relationships in my life did not turn out the way I hoped they would. Not just in the past, but even now. There are relationships that feel strained. Heavy. Unresolved.
And there is something deeply unsettling about that.
Some things don’t have a clean fix. There isn’t always a conversation that ties it up. There isn’t always closure. Sometimes things just are what they are.
And truthfullly, there’s also fear.
The kind of fear that whispers, what if I become what I’ve experienced?
What if I fall into the same patterns? The same emotional distance. The same inability to be fully present. To really listen. To love well.
But then there is my husband.
Siafa is not perfect. But I have often felt like he was handpicked for a woman like me, for this kind of tender heart.
He has a loud laugh, the kind that fills a house, but his way of loving is quiet. Steady. Intentional. The kind that doesn’t always announce itself with words, but shows up in presence.
It reminds me of St. Joseph.
A man who was willing to quietly divorce Mary because he did not want to bring her to public shame. A man who, when told otherwise, obeyed without hesitation and took her as his wife.
There is something sacred in that kind of love. A love that protects. A love that listens. A love that moves with quiet obedience and strength.
Siafa, for reasons I don’t always understand, doesn’t use a lot of emotional words. But he hugs me when I cry. He protects me from danger. He listens, and when he speaks, there is wisdom in it.
And maybe the most powerful thing of all, he has always believed something good about me. Something it took me years to see in myself.
His capacity to love, sacrificially and steadily, has changed me.
It has changed how I see people.
And it has changed how I show up.
So today, I had to let life slow down.
I had to give myself permission to feel what I was feeling instead of rushing past it.
To sit in the fear.
To sit in the sadness.
To let the tears come without trying to explain them away.
And I cried.
I cried for the children who grew up without being seen or known.
I cried for the adults who are still carrying that absence, still trying to make sense of what they didn’t receive.
I cried for the relationships in my own life that feel complicated and tender.
And I cried for this transition I’m in, knowing I will miss what is slipping away, even as I step into what’s next.
But somewhere on the other side of all those tears, something steady was waiting for me.
Gratitude.
Not because everything is perfect. Not because every relationship is healed or whole.
But because I can love.
Because despite everything, I have the capacity to love.
To love my children with presence.
To listen when they speak, even when I’m tired.
To hug them, to kiss them, to show up for them in ways that matter.
Not perfectly.
But intentionally.
And maybe that’s the difference.
Maybe the story doesn’t end with what we didn’t receive.
Maybe it continues in what we choose to give.
And today, I am choosing to be grateful that I can give love at all.
If this post spoke to you…
Share it with someone who might need it, too. Whether it’s a quiet encouragement or a new way of seeing things, these reflections are meant to be passed along.
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Martina Griffin is a Catholic convert, writer, wife, and mother of four. She writes about faith, motherhood, beauty, books, and the quiet ache of transformation. A lover of popcorn, deep questions, and old classics, she shares her heart at Big Bowl of Popcorn—one post at a time. Instagram | Facebook | Email Me |
From Big Bowl of Popcorn
Finding Alberta
A novel about love, grief, and what is remembered and misunderstood.
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