“I assume you’re going to adopt?” the judge said. 

Carolyn rocked onto her heels. She’d cared for her brother’s three-year-old granddaughter while he and the child’s mother swirled in the horrors of substance use, but she hadn’t planned to adopt. The alternative was unthinkable. She swallowed hard and answered, “Yes.”

Carolyn’s selflessness saved her grand-niece from foster care, but inflicted chaos and turmoil on her family. As the child grew, her trauma manifest as reactive attachment disorder. Carolyn grieved the loss of peace in her home and increasingly resented her brother for being present in all the wrong ways and then not being present at all. Being naturally inclined to compassion, her unwanted resentment and anger only added to her burden.

“I found Jesus,” Tony said years later after contracting colon cancer.

“I’m sure you did, now that you’re on your deathbed,” Carolyn snapped.

When Tony spoke of finding forgiveness from God, Carolyn resented him even more. Why does he get a free pass while I’m left to deal with the consequences of his actions? she wondered. They’d hardly spoken in years. She wanted nothing to do with him.

As cancer ravaged Tony’s body, their mother begged Carolyn to come to his bedside. “You’re the only one who hasn’t said goodbye,” she insisted.

Carolyn finally acquiesced, not for Tony’s sake, but for her mother’s. To her amazement, a profound spiritual peace filled his home. She found him wasted and too weak to open his eyes.

“I’m here,” she whispered.

He raised a brow.

“That’s more than he’s moved in days,” Carolyn’s mother said, encouraging her to continue.

“I love you,” she choked out. She wondered how she’d said it, but it felt right. “You can go now,” she said.

Tony raised his brow again and took his last breath.

Exhausted and strangely comforted by what she’d said and felt, Carolyn slipped away from the grieving family and retreated to the front porch. She juggled her sorrows, frustrations, and recriminations about Tony’s actions and her responses over the years. Then she heard a clear distinct voice she intuitively knew belonged to her Savior.

“All I asked you to do was to love him.”

Overwhelmed with emotion, Carolyn realized her trek to Tony’s bedside hadn’t been for him; it had been for her. Love can be hard. It comes in many forms. She was grateful she’d finally verbalized it to Tony. As she later told me, “It’s all about love!!!”