By Brock
I thought my book was finished. I also thought I wasn’t going to write about the last few weeks, but this morning I started writing. To my surprise, this poured out. And, I think it will become the final section of my book.
Over the past few weeks, two major events pulled me back to my small hometown in Arizona—something I hadn’t done in years. First, my mother became critically ill. The kind of illness where the phone calls start coming in not just with updates, but with urgency. And then, just days later, my grandmother passed away.
My grandmother was 93 years old—sweet, stubborn, and loved me fiercely. For most of her life, she had insisted on her independence. She still lived alone, still dressed herself each morning, still moved through her home with quiet determination. But a fall, or maybe just a stumble—no one’s really sure—left a bruise on her side. When the doctor visited her the night before she died, he told her she’d need oxygen. That meant a long tube trailing behind her, and someone always nearby to make sure she didn’t trip. It also meant she couldn’t live alone anymore. The options were clear: move into a care facility, or have someone move in with her.
She listened. Then looked at him squarely and said, “Fine. I’ll just go.” And she wasn’t talking about the nursing home.
The next morning, she rose like always and put on her shoes. Then, she laid her head back on the couch—just for a moment, maybe to rest—and slipped quietly from this world. On her terms. In her home. In her own time.
She left behind a legacy of more than 160 descendants—children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even great-great-grandchildren. Most of them gathered at her funeral, flooding the chapel with faces I hadn’t seen in over twenty years. Faces I had once written off as part of a past life I no longer belonged to.
The truth is, there’s been a lot of pain in my family history—especially around my wedding, a decade ago. I sent invitations to my immediate family. I didn’t expect them all to come, but I at least hoped someone would respond. No one did. Not even an RSVP “no.” The silence was deafening. Only days before the wedding, my dad finally called to say that he and my mom would not be coming. I said that I undestod, but I also said, “this is a decision you can never undo.” To which he agreed.
This was before marriage equality was the law of the land, and back then, the very idea of our wedding made some people uncomfortable—maybe even angry. I understood, intellectually. But the complete silence? That part hurt.
So I drew a line. A quiet one, but firm. I wouldn’t cut them off completely—I still made calls, still showed up when I could. But I stopped feeling guilty for the moments I didn’t. I turned toward the love I had, instead of mourning the love that stayed silent.
My relationship with my mother was always good, though not particularly deep. We shared a love of music. She nurtured my creative spirit from the time I was small—encouraging my passion for music and the stage. She took me to every musical she could. We were alike in so many ways, which meant we sometimes clashed, but we never truly fought. We never touched the really deep conversations, so there wasn’t much room for conflict—but also not much room for resolution either.
In recent years, she began to fade. Slowly at first—struggling to hold onto new memories. Then more rapidly. She stopped leaving the house. Rarely ate. Rarely left her bed. Her world became small, centered around my father and a few close friends.
A few weeks ago, her condition worsened quickly. She had to be flown by helicopter to Phoenix for emergency care. It was scary and surreal. But after a few procedures and some time, she stabilized enough to return home. And I got a few quiet days with her—sitting by her bedside, listening to her and her sister laugh like they were teenagers again. Watching her lifelong friends crawl onto the bed beside her, just to hold her hand and share a memory. It was strangely beautiful—these moments of tenderness in the middle of so much fragility.
Returning to Arizona was unexpectedly emotional. I’ve always carried complicated feelings about that place. A piece of my heart will always belong to the desert and the high plateau—it holds memories of a childhood full of joy, even if it was shadowed by secrets and pain. It’s where I met John. Where we built a life. Where Olivia came into the world. Some of my deepest, oldest friendships are rooted in that red soil. But for years, I never longed to return. Until this time.
Coming back with my husband, daughter, and our exchange student—who had become like family—was healing in a way I didn’t expect. We revisited the botanical gardens where we first met, where we got engaged. We reconnected with old friends. We walked familiar paths. It felt nostalgic, warm, safe.
But returning to my small hometown of Snowflake—now that was different. I am a tangled knot of emotions when it comes to that place. I usually keep my visits brief, and I’m careful not to bring John and Olivia too often. I’ve been afraid. Afraid they might feel the judgment I once did. Afraid they’d see the parts of my story I’ve worked so hard to heal from.
But what happened instead was the opposite.
A few weeks before any of this—before the late-night phone call about my mom, before my grandmother’s final breath—I had a dream. I rarely remember my dreams, and even when I do, they don’t usually linger like this one did. It was vivid, surreal, and oddly comforting. I woke up knowing it meant something, even if I couldn’t quite explain it yet.
In the dream, I was on an airplane—except it wasn’t like any airplane I’d ever seen. It was massive, so enormous it somehow contained the entire town of Snowflake. Even the high school and the football field were onboard. The bleachers had been transformed into airplane seats, equipped with seat belts. It didn’t seem odd at the time. John and Olivia were with me, sitting close, and we were all heading to Washington, D.C.
One of my oldest friends from childhood walked up the bleachers and sat beside me. We watched a football game together, just like old times. Then something happened that had never occurred in waking life. He gently leaned his head on my shoulder, wrapped his arm around mine, and said, “I’m proud of you. I’m really happy I know you.” It wasn’t ironic. It wasn’t awkward. It was sincere.
Then the football coach walked up the aisle and saw us—my old friend still holding my arm, my husband and daughter beside me. He smiled and said, “It’s so good to have you home.” His voice carried warmth and welcome. I remember feeling deeply seen in that moment—like somehow, I belonged again.
Suddenly, the plane dropped. Fast. So fast I felt my body begin to lift out of the seat. But I didn’t panic. I grabbed the seat in front of me, pulled myself down, buckled in, and calmly turned to those around me. “We’re going to be fine,” I said. “We’re not crashing. We just need to land.” And I knew it to be true. I don’t know how, but I did.
We made an emergency landing on a narrow road in rural Virginia, where, to my surprise, people were already waiting. A massive scaffold had been built that reached all the way to the plane’s door, ready for our arrival. As we descended, I felt peaceful. Supported. Somehow expected.
At the bottom, there was just one van. It was for me and my family. The rest of the town would be heading back to Snowflake. Everyone waved and smiled and cheered as we prepared to leave. And as we climbed into the SUV, several people ran up to us with excitement and said, “This van can go over 70!” They were thrilled by it. I’m not sure why that detail mattered—why it was so important to them—but I’m sure I’ll understand one day.
Later, I met with a Jungian coach to talk through the dream. As we unraveled the layers, the message became clear: my past wasn’t something I had to keep outrunning. The town I had left still carried love for me. The people I feared had turned away were still cheering me on. The time was right to return. And the most haunting part? That dream came weeks before my mother fell seriously ill, and before my grandmother passed away.
From the moment we arrived in Phoenix, people from my old church life began appearing—people I hadn’t seen in decades. Childhood friends showed up at the hotel. College friends came to visit. Then, back in Snowflake, everywhere we turned, we were met with love. Real, genuine love. Cousins I hadn’t spoken to in years came over to introduce themselves to John and Olivia. They hugged us. Sat beside us. Laughed with us. Asked questions. Shared stories. It was beautiful.
On our drive back to Phoenix, I did what we always do after something important—I debriefed with m family. We talked about the big things that had just happened to all of us. As part of this, I asked them to pick a word that described their experience. Olivia, our sweet, preteen, volunteered first. Her word? “Heartfelt.” We all nodded. It was perfect. We each chose this as our word as well. Because that’s what it was: heartfelt.
That trip didn’t just reconnect me with my roots. It helped me realize that I had been keeping parts of my heart closed off—out of fear, out of hurt, out of old assumptions. But those parts of me, those relationships, had been waiting. Not just for me to come home, but for them to come find me too.
But healing is strange. It’s not linear, and it’s not always loud. Sometimes, it shows up in the quietest moments. Like sitting by my mother’s bed, hearing her laugh with her sister even as her memory faded. Or watching old friends and long-lost cousins reappear with hugs and warmth at my grandmother’s funeral. These were people I had written off, convinced the chapter with them was closed. But love—real, unguarded love—slipped in through the cracks. It didn’t erase the past, but it softened me toward the present. It reminded me that sometimes people surprise you. That the same place you once left behind in pain can hold a kind of restoration you never expected.
If you’re standing in the ache of disappointment, feeling tempted to close the door for good, I offer this: protect your heart, yes. Set boundaries, absolutely. But try not to slam the door so tight that nothing can ever come through. Leave a sliver of space—just enough—for something unexpected. People grow. Hearts change. Healing often happens in the most ordinary places: a shared meal, a long drive, a familiar face at a funeral. You don’t have to go back. But if life nudges you in that direction, you may find that some of the people you’d given up on have been waiting, too—hearts open, arms ready, just like yours.
Leave a Reply