My Voice
Freedom of voice.
That is what I am longing for.
Have you ever carried the belief that it wasn't safe to be heard?
For most of my life, I did.
That might surprise people because much of my life has been spent being the voice for others, especially for those I believed couldn't find theirs. I was the fiercely protective friend, the one who would step into everyone else's battles. Looking back now, I realise it was often easier to fight for someone else than it was to fight for myself.
My own voice stayed hidden.
Not because I didn't have one.
Because somewhere along the way, I learned it wasn't safe to use it.
For years, I prayed for something I never thought I would admit out loud. I prayed for my mother's passing long before she died.
That sounds cruel.
But it wasn't because I hated her.
It was because I felt trapped.
I believed that the only way I would ever truly be free to release everything I had buried to grieve, to speak, to heal would come when she was no longer here.
Our relationship was marked by years of conflict. As a Christian, I kept returning, believing that honouring your father and mother meant enduring repeated hurt, trauma and sorrow. I thought faith required me to keep walking back into places that broke me.
Then I became a mother.
Something shifted.
I began reading Scripture differently.
I noticed how fiercely Jesus protected the vulnerable. I noticed His warnings about causing harm to "the least of these." I began to realise that honour was never meant to mean accepting abuse, silencing truth or abandoning wisdom.
That changed everything.
Forgiveness is one of the biggest conversations within Christianity.
Yes, Christ forgave the world.
But Christ also carried a cross that was never mine to carry.
Somewhere along the way, I had confused forgiveness with the expectation that I should continue absorbing harm.
Remaining in constant contact didn't bring healing.
It brought stress.
It brought illness.
It brought tension so overwhelming that I often felt like I couldn't breathe.
The hardest part?
My mum genuinely didn't believe she had done anything wrong.
To her, saying "sorry" should have been enough simply because the words had been spoken.
Two years before she passed away, our family was called into a meeting with her doctors. They believed she had only six to eight weeks to live.
I cried.
Not because I regretted everything.
Not because suddenly everything was okay.
But because, in that moment, I received what I thought was the apology I had waited my whole life to hear.
"I'm sorry I couldn't be the mother you wanted me to be."
I held onto those words.
Until later, when she followed them by saying she didn't regret anything.
It wasn't really an apology after all.
I've often wondered what people think about when they know their life is coming to an end.
Surely there are things left unsaid.
Things they wish they had done differently.
Words they long to leave behind for the people they love.
When the will was finally read, I remember hoping there might be a letter.
Just something.
A page.
A few handwritten words.
Some final wisdom.
A declaration of love.
Closure.
There wasn't.
As a daughter, that hurt.
As a mother, it hurt even more.
I remember believing in my twenties that I had forgiven. I hadn't forgotten, but I believed I had made peace with it.
Then I became a parent.
Suddenly every wound returned not because I was becoming my mother, but because I finally understood what she had chosen not to do.
I looked at my own children and found myself asking questions that echoed through my heart.
How could you?
How could a parent not protect?
How could a parent not repair?
How could a parent not fight for relationship?
Becoming a mother didn't create new wounds. It revealed the depth of the old ones.
There has been so much trapped inside me.
The shame.
The silence.
The feeling of never belonging.
The abuse.
The grief.
The longing to simply be seen.
For years, my voice has lived behind locked doors.
This blog is not about attacking anyone, it isn't about revenge and it isn't even about proving what happened.
It's about something far more important.
It's about giving myself permission to speak.
Because healing isn't only about processing what happened.
Sometimes healing is allowing the parts of ourselves that have been hidden for decades to finally come into the light.
This is only the beginning.
The beginning of a long series.
The beginning of finding my voice.
The beginning of opening the cage.
And maybe, after all these years...
