“Missing Pieces”

Some people grow up with a full house. I grew up with a hole in mine.

I miss my mom. I miss my dad. Not because I had long memories of them — but because I didn’t. They were gone before I could even understand what having parents meant. My mom left. My dad left. And I was two years old, too young to make sense of anything, but just old enough to carry the emptiness they left behind.

People say you can’t miss what you never had. But I do. I miss what could have been. What should have been. I miss the hugs I never got. The encouragement I never heard. The "I'm proud of you" I always needed but never received from the people who were supposed to be my first home.

And then came the rest of the world. Friends, or at least, people who pretended to be. I tried so hard to belong — to be enough, to be liked, to be worth staying for.

But I was never really “in.” Never really wanted. I got bullied. Ignored. Used. And when I finally thought I had a real friend, they stole from me. Lied. Made me question my reality.
As if life hadn't already taught me not to trust anyone.

So I pulled back. Quieted myself. Started believing that maybe it was me. Maybe I was just too much. Or not enough. Or both, at the same time.

But through all of this — through the chaos, the loneliness, the nights I cried quietly so no one would hear — there were two people who stayed. My grandparents.

They didn’t sign up for this. They were older. They were tired. And I know I was a handful. I know I was angry, confused, emotionally messy, and hard to reach sometimes.

But they never gave up on me.

They fed me when I didn’t want to eat. They sat beside me when I had nothing to say. They loved me when I didn’t even love myself. Even when I felt like a burden, they made me feel like family. Even when I didn’t belong anywhere else, I belonged in their home.

That love saved me more times than I can count. But the guilt stayed too. Because I knew they deserved rest, not responsibility. And I wish I could’ve made it easier for them. Everything I am today — the strength, the softness, the fact that I’m still standing — is because of them. And everything I’m still healing from — the trust issues, the loneliness, the fear of abandonment — is because of everything I never had.

Missing my mom and dad didn’t just change me.
It built me — out of broken bricks, shaky hands, and a heart that never stopped hoping.
Lack shaped me.
Love saved me.
And the combination of the two made me who I am.

To anyone who feels like a burden, or like no one really stayed — I see you.
And I hope this space makes you feel a little less alone.