On Tuesday, January 27, 2026, there was a shooting at a dorm at my middle daughter’s college. The alert was posted publicly on the school’s Instagram page. They named the dorm — but since my daughter has gone no contact with me, I had no idea which dorm she lives in.
I stared at my phone, frozen. I didn’t know if she was in that building. I didn’t know if she was at her boyfriend’s house. I didn’t even know if she had seen the post. I only knew one thing: I was terrified.
I broke my silence and messaged her on Instagram. I didn’t expect a response. I simply needed to try. When there was no reply, I reached out to my oldest daughter, hoping she might know which dorm her sister lived in. They aren’t close — trauma and complicated family dynamics have built distance between them — but she reached out anyway.
That night, I went to bed praying. Not for reconciliation. Not for answers. Just that my daughter was alive and safe.
Before I fell into a deep sleep, my oldest daughter messaged me: She’s okay.
The relief was overwhelming. And yet, the sadness lingered.
When my middle daughter ran away, she contacted me because she knew I would be scared. She knew I would search. She knew I would do whatever I could to find her. And I did.
I filed a police report when no one else would. I worked with the police to get her out of an unsafe situation involving another boy. I advocated. I worried. I fought for her safety.
She never thanked me. And maybe she didn’t have the emotional capacity to. I try to remember that.
The last message she sent me called me by my given name — not Mama. That one word shift carried more weight than she probably realized. She said she needed no contact not only for her own mental health, which I understand, but for mine as well.
That part hurt. Deeply.
Because while I respect her boundaries, and I understand trauma responses, the idea that silence protects my mental health feels painfully untrue. Especially in moments like this.
My counselor reminds me often: everyone processes trauma differently. I hold onto that.
What triggers me most is the fear of losing my children — emotionally or physically. I’ve worked hard on the emotional side. But the physical fear? The terror of something happening to them? That lives deep in my nervous system.
So when there is a shooting at my child’s college, and I don’t know if she is safe, the silence is unbearable.
I am not asking for long conversations. I am not asking for explanations. I am not asking her to cross boundaries she needs to protect herself.
I am only wishing for two words:
I’m okay.
Two words that could let a mother breathe.
I know my middle daughter is deeply traumatized. She carries wounds from an abusive past relationship, from family dysfunction, from emotional neglect, and from the complicated realities of having imperfect parents. I know she is surviving, not intentionally hurting.
She has always loved animals. She loves fiercely. She feels deeply. I don’t believe she is cruel. I don’t believe she wants to cause pain.
I believe she is protecting herself the only way she knows how — by disconnecting.
And yet, I am human. I am a mother. And I have feelings too.
Holding compassion for her pain does not erase my own.
Estrangement is not just distance. It is living in a constant state of unanswered fear.
It is seeing breaking news and instantly wondering if your child is inside it.
It is loving someone so much that even silence feels loud.
It is respecting boundaries while quietly breaking inside.
I don’t write this to accuse. I write this to process. To understand. To hold space for both her trauma and my heartbreak.
I know she has a right to her boundaries. And I also know that I have a right to my feelings.
Both can exist at the same time.
And tonight, I hold gratitude that she is safe — alongside the grief that I had to find out through someone else.
That is the strange, painful duality of estrangement: relief and sorrow living side by side.
And learning, slowly, how to carry both.
t. 🤍
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