Honey to Bear

March 9, 2025

It’s easier to block it all out than to face it head-on. Does that make me a coward? I feel like if I finally call her after months of ignoring her, I would turn into a pile of crumbs upon hearing her voice.

My mom has always been my rock—the one consistent person in my life. She’s always been there for me physically and emotionally. When we went skydiving together on my 25th birthday, she was the last person I looked at before I flung myself out of the plane. When I experienced a falling out with a longtime friend in Playa del Carmen, she was the one I called, and she ran to my side to help hold my aching heart. When I got my dream job, she was the first to know. Through the ups and downs, she was always there.

It all changed when my uncle died a few days shy of New Year’s 2024. My mom, who stayed by his side in the months leading up to his death, was the most destroyed. She joined the church shortly after, and I was happy for her to find a sense of community to help her through the loss. The church was the same one my mom’s mom and a few of her siblings had frequented regularly. I didn’t think much of it.

July came, and my grandma (her mom) passed away while getting ready for church. The funeral was beautiful, and I was surprised by how many lives my grandma had touched. I hugged my mom and exchanged a few kind words, not realizing just how much this would change everything.

It was September when my mom called to tell me she was moving to Maryland to be closer to the church. I learned that she had given all her money to the church and now dedicated every waking second to reading the Bible, listening to sermons from her congregation, and quite literally following a man from Africa who claims to be a “prophet.”

What the actual fuck. I did my best to convince her to stay in California, to look for a new job here, to think about her own future and retirement. My words fell on deaf ears, and she left, telling me her “future is in God’s hands” and “not to worry.”

I worry myself sick. Every time I call her, I learn something new that leads me to sleepless nights. She tells me she has a job out there, and I relax. She then tells me her “job” is a volunteer position with the church, not a paid one. She’s staying in an apartment provided by the church and shares a room with her sister. She tells me she’s happy. A few weeks later, she tells me she’s selling her car because “God told her to.” I ask her how she’s going to get groceries, and she says she’ll walk. Frustrated, I hang up. I feel like I’m talking to another person—this is not my mother.

Every call I answer from my mom makes me feel like she’s slipping deeper and deeper into a state of brainwashing. She claims the music being produced is the work of the devil. She says there’s going to be a war between aliens and robots in the near future. She says she’s learning how to become a prophet like the one she follows. I feel like the mom I once knew is dead. I don’t know this woman.

As the holidays creep up, I ask her if she’s sad that she won’t be spending them with her family. “No,” she says simply. “I have plenty of friends over here.” I think that cut me the deepest. I felt like a used wrapper being tossed in the gutter. How can she abandon me so easily? I’d always thought if anyone were to move away, it would be me moving away for work or for love. She was my one consistent, and it had never occurred to me that there would come a time when she wasn’t.

My dad jumped ship about 10 years prior, opting for the cheap, warm atmosphere of Thailand. He’s always been secretive about his life there. He could be married, have children, and I’d be none the wiser. I was actually happy for him when he told me he was leaving to retire there—he’d been so miserable during the last couple of years I grew up with him. His days bled into the next as he took his place on the couch with a glass of vodka in one hand and the TV remote in the other. I had always hoped that in Thailand, he’d found himself, found a reason to start really living again. I haven’t spoken to him in 8 years, after quickly realizing he’d never give me the truth about his life and his current reality.

This is what is propelling me to want to find a man and start a family. The family I grew up with had more or less moved away and abandoned me. Here I am at 30 years old crying over my childhood family. I feel a little pathetic. I shouldn’t need my mom and dad anymore. I’m at the stage where I can create a family of my own. That is what I’ll strive to do: I’ll create a beautiful and loving family. One that doesn’t run from each other. One that doesn’t hold secrets for fear of judgment. One that is rooted in openness and honesty. One that will stick together forever.