The Goodbye I Wasn’t Ready For: What I Told My Toddler (When I Didn’t Have the Words)
💥 The Real-Life Mom Moment That Broke Me
This week, I said goodbye to my dad.
Not the casual, “see you next time” kind.
The real kind.
The kind that leaves a lump in your throat and a question you don’t want to ask:
Will I ever see him again?
My dad is 75. He’s struggled with drinking and his mental health for as long as I can remember. He’s beaten cancer, but years of hard living, difficult choices, and a lifetime working in construction have taken a toll. His body isn’t what it used to be.
The situation between my parents hasn’t been healthy for a long time. They both carry their own burdens, demons they’ve been battling for many years. So after 49 years of marriage, my dad made a decision that caught everyone off guard: he packed up and moved across the country in search of peace.
And it’s complicated. Painfully, heartbreakingly complicated.
And still, I’m proud of him.
He stopped drinking.
He stopped smoking.
He wants to be better.
He wants to be happy.
My inner little girl wishes he had done all of this when I was small. But… if he had, maybe my life would’ve looked different. And I can’t imagine not ending up exactly where I am, with the husband I love and the two beautiful children who are my whole world.
Still, his decision cracked something open in an already fractured family. And when I asked him to come see me before he left, I wasn’t prepared for the weight of that final hug. I didn’t expect it to hit so hard. But it did.
And in the middle of all this emotion, my daughter, who just turned four, looked up at me with wide eyes and asked,
“Mommy, why are you sad?”
🧠 What Was Really Going On
I didn’t know how to answer.
How do you explain decades of family pain and generational patterns and second chances to a preschooler?
So I didn’t.
I told her Grandpop was going on an adventure, the adventure of a lifetime. That I’d miss him. That sometimes tears are just love we haven’t figured out how to say out loud yet. And that missing someone is just another way we remember how much they matter to us.
Was it the perfect explanation?
Probably not.
But I didn’t have a script for this moment.
I wasn’t prepared.
And that’s something I’m learning over and over again as a mom…
There will be moments, big, messy, beautiful, heartbreaking ones, that you just won’t be ready for.
Not as a parent. Not as a daughter. Not as a human being.
✅ What I’m Reminding Myself (And Maybe You Too)
I’ve spent a lot of time this week thinking about how many of us carry both grief and gratitude in the same breath. And how we try to make sense of choices, ours or someone else’s, that ripple through generations.
Here’s what I’m holding onto:
It’s okay to feel both pride and pain.
It’s okay to not have the perfect words.
It’s okay if your tears come out in front of your kids.
It’s okay to say goodbye even when you don’t know how.
And maybe most of all…
It’s okay to believe that people can choose peace, even late in life.
And that choosing peace, even when it’s hard for everyone else, is still something worth honoring.
💬 Final Thought:
Sometimes the hardest part of parenting isn’t knowing what to do, it’s facing what you never expected to explain. The messy, grown-up stuff. The things we ourselves are still trying to understand.
But love? Love makes space for it all.
For the messy moments.
The imperfect words.
The hard goodbyes.
Because our kids don’t need us to be perfect.
They just need us to be present.
And sometimes… present means crying in the kitchen while your toddler asks what’s wrong.
And answering the best way you can.
