Sunday Stillness

Today, I am sitting shiva for a son I have lost.

Not a son I gave birth to.

A son I loved.

Over the years, I have fostered and adopted several children. I stopped counting at 21. They are all adults now, 30+ years old, with lives and stories and journeys of their own.

Last week, something beautiful happened.

I found one of the children I had been missing for a very long time. We had both been looking for each other for years. Then his daughter told him, "Stop complaining and use social media."

And somehow, she was right.

We found each other.

There was an online celebration-a little party with him and some of the other "children." There was laughter. There were memories. There was the joy of discovering that some bonds, even after years of silence, can still be found.

I was overjoyed.

And then today, my heart was broken by a message from another child.

I had invited him to be part of our birthday celebrations. Fortunately-or perhaps providentially-I never saw his response when he sent it.

I saw it today.

It said:

"Don't invite me to anything. Just give me what is mine."

This is a child I have loved since he was two years old.

A child I did not give birth to, but whose life I helped carry.

I sent him all the way through university. I opened my home to him. When he returned from university, I allowed him to live there without rent. I gave what I could because that is what mothers do. We give. We make room. We show up.

And today, I found myself sitting quietly with the realization that sometimes, a person you have loved deeply can still choose to speak to you with extraordinary disrespect.

I told him that I found his response incredibly rude.

His answer?

"You should see the ones I deleted."

And that was the moment I understood something about boundaries that perhaps I have spent a lifetime learning.

Love does not require you to tolerate disrespect.

There is a difference between forgiveness and permission.

There is a difference between loving someone and allowing them unlimited access to you.

There is a difference between being a mother and allowing yourself to be trampled because you are a mother.

So today, I am sitting shiva.

Not because someone has died.

But because a relationship, as I knew it, has.

His things will be packed.

They will be left outside.

And I will grieve.

I will grieve the little boy I knew. I will grieve the years, the memories, and perhaps most of all, the version of our relationship I thought would always exist.

But I will not beg.

I will not chase.

And I will not accept disrespect simply because I have loved someone deeply.

To all the parents who are hurting because of something their children have said or done:

I see you.

Hold on.

But hold on to yourself, too.

Love your children.

Pray for them.

Leave the door open when it is healthy to do so.

But discipline yourself to remember that you are a human being deserving of dignity.

You can love someone with your whole heart and still say:

You may not treat me this way.

Boundaries are not the absence of love.

Sometimes, boundaries are what remain when love has been pushed beyond what it can bear.

Tonight, I sit with my grief.

Tomorrow, I will get up.

And I will continue to love.

But I will not be walked on.

Love may be unconditional. Access is not.

Sunday Stillness.

Dr Sandra Hamilton

Cultivating Quiet Confidence